Do Book Trailers Sell Books? Post your book trailer here!

[Pearson Oldmitz]

My friend, author Stephen Poleskie, recently had a book trailer made for his book VIGILIA'S TEMPEST. While it had over 700 hits on YouTube in the first months it was up, and has now passed 4300 hits, he is not quite sure how many sales this actually accounted for. Here is the link to his book trailer if you would like to check it out: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JY5eCVRnDw0

Let me know what your opinion is of the effectiveness of book trailers, positive or negative. Please feel free to post your book trailer here if you have one, or someone elses if you wish to comment on it.

Best wishes,

Pearson Oldmitz

[Pearson Oldmitz]

Hello Barbara,

I enjoyed your tailer and will check out your book. Using classical music as a background was a nice touch. Has it brought in any sales that you know of? Also, after your trailer finished an 1:47 video of Orwell's 1984 opened up and started playing. Was this supposed to happen? I would have loved to watch the whole film if I had the time. Maybe tomorrow, that is if it's there again. If you're on Facebook go ahead and post your trailer to my wall.

Good luck with your book,

Pearson

[Barbara Rayne]

Hello Pearson,

Orwell wasn't planned, that's God's way of playing jokes :D Thank you for the facebook offer, no sales generated by this so far, so I will post at your wall just in case it catches someone's interest.

46 views, 3 likes and 1 dislike in last 24 hours. Some trailer blogs picked up on it and posted it but no reaction.

Thanks,

Barbara

EDIT: My facebook profile is a page so I cannot post on your wall, but thanks anyway :)))

   

[Roberta Goodman]

Several weeks ago I made a simple book trailer for my eBook, Snow Escape. I used Windows Movie Maker and placed it on YouTube. I haven't even gotten 100 hits, so obviously for me I don't believe it's made a difference. Here it is, if anyone wants to check it out. I apologize in advance for the pace of the trailer. I couldn't figure out how to slow it down. I've found pausing it makes it easier to read.
http://youtu.be/xVXUYGzUbME

[Pearson Oldmitz]

Hi Roberta,

I checked out your trailer. It's not that fast, maybe fewer words in each frame would help, and some images in the background. I'll try Windows Movie Maker to see what it's like. I've never tried to make a trailer and all my writer friends seem to have them made up. Then they don't like them even though they have spent the bucks. And 100 hits isn't bad. Look at all the other Trafford Press books that come up when you log onto Stephen Poleskie's video. Many have no hits at all, and thirty-three is a high number. Poleskie has over 1000 hits because he has had his friends working for him, posting to Facebook, and various other mailing lists that they have gotten from art galleries, book stores and other sources. That's the problem these days. Even some of my well-known writer friends with big name publishers tell me that they have to do most of the promoting work themselves. Feel free to post your trailer on my Facebook wall. Maybe it will get you a few more hits. I would say that I will check out you book, but I must confess that I have yet to buy an e-reader.

Best wishes,

Pearson Oldmitz

[Roberta Goodman]

Thank you Pearson :)

I actually got the idea to try Movie Maker from an article I read about another author who had done it. I figured I had nothing to lose; it's free after all!! I guess the main reason I decided to make one is because I felt I needed to promote my work in as many mediums as possible. Videos on YouTube are watched by millions of people, so it was an obvious choice. Definitely try it. It takes a little time figuring it out, but like I said, it won't cost you anything and it might just turn out better than some "professional" trailers I've seen.

Best wishes to you,

Roberta

[ManOfLaBook.com]

I don't know if book trailers actually sell books, the conventional wisdom I heard from those in the industry is "no" but some say self-help books benefit from them.

 

Personally, I never bought a book because of a book trailer.

 

http://www.ManOfLaBook.com

[Pearson Oldmitz]

On a slightly different note here is a trailer called The Art of the Steal, about the art collection at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. Check it out. It obviously was not a low budget project. It is however, a good example of what can be done with trailers. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMe3r9PLtpI&feature=colike

Maybe it will encourage some additional posts.

Best wishes,

Pearson

[Andrew Levkoff]

Don't know if it sells any book, but it sure was fun to produce!

[Pearson Oldmitz]

Hi Andrew,

Your trailer looks very good; thank you for posting it here. Maybe you can tell us just how involved you were with the production, what you actually did, and how you liked the company that you worked with. Their logo flashed pretty quickly there at the end.

Good luck with your book. The trailer makes it sound very interesting. I will check it out. I hope that you sell a bunch. I will also check out your web site. Keep working!

Best wishes,

Pearson

[Andrew Levkoff]

Hi Pearson,

I worked with Kim McDougall of http://blazingtrailers.com/. She was a real pleasure to work with. We both worked on the script; I found the royalty free music (but she can do that as well), and all the special effects are hers.Kim and I spent many days going back and forth on music cues, statue choices, etc. She put in a lot of work. I give her a five-star review.

The trailer has only been out a short while but is already increasing activity, mostly on the blogs, but some from youtube directly. Self-published authors need to use every tool possible to market our works, so I recommend everyone invest in a trailer.

[Pearson Oldmitz]

Hi Andrew,

Thanks for sharing that information. I went to Blazing Trailers and their site looked very interesting. What blogs have you posted your trailer on? Some of our readers might be interested in learning of any new possibilities.You are right when you say that self-published authors need to use every tool posible to market their works.

Unfortunately many authors I know, who publish with big name publishers, Penguin for one, are being told that the must do their own promotion. An author told me that when she asked her editor what kind of budget they were going to provide for her book she was told that there was no budget and that if she wanted ads she had to pay for them herself. This is what we gave you an advance for; the editor is reported to have said. 

Oh well, I guess that these are hard times for everybody.

Best wishes,

Pearson

 

[Andrew Levkoff]

If it was a high six-figure advance, I just might agree.

The trailer is on youtube with all the appropriate key words for readers. It's also on the blog on my website:  andrewlevkoff.com/blog.