I suppose it’s typical of an author to dream of your book being made into a movie one day. We are no exceptions. We’ve imagined ourselves sitting in the darkened movie theater, watching the trailer for To the Ends of the Earth come onto the screen. Bombastic music! Heart-pounding drama! Lights, camera, action!
Well, Hollywood hasn’t called yet, but that doesn’t mean our ideas have to languish only in the imagination. Through the wonder of modern technology, To the Ends of the Earth now has its very own book trailer. A book trailer is a short video (akin to a movie preview) that you can post on YouTube, MySpace videos, Google videos ... anywhere you think people might come across it and be intrigued enough to check out your work. Many authors are doing this these days ... it’s yet another way to reach people, get the excited about your book, and share your creative vision.
We made the trailer using Windows Movie Maker software, which comes bundled with Windows XP and can also be downloaded for free from www.microsoft.com. It took a few hours of trial and error to figure out how to use it, but it was not difficult and the results are, I think, surprisingly professional. The software lets you add stills, video clips, and music to your trailer pretty easily.
We got most of the photos for our trailer from royalty-free stock photo sites such as www.morguefile.com. For music, we downloaded some royalty-free music from www.shockwave-sound.com. The total cost of the trailer was about 20 hours of time and $30 for the music.
Thanks are due to romance novelist Brenda Coulter, who has instructions on making the a book trailer on her great blog, No Rules, Just Write. We pretty much followed her advice to a tee.
So, grab your popcorn, sit back, and enjoy. Let us know what you think.
Watch the book trailer for To the Ends of the Earth: The Last Journey of Lewis & Clark
