After you’ve self-published your book, how do you get it into the hands of readers? With millions of titles available online and in stores, you need to find strategies for connecting readers with your new book. You have to spread the word about it and catch people’s attention. This is where book promotion and book trailers come in.
Promoting a new book is essential to getting it noticed by booksellers, libraries, universities, wholesalers, and distributors, as well as by individual readers. Book promotion is, in other words, an advertising campaign to sell your book.
Book promotion can take many forms. You can attend conferences and organize events, contact the media through press releases, build a website, produce ads, and maintain a social media presence to discuss your writing.
You can also create video and audio trailers for you new book.
Videos and audio clips are great advertisements because they’re engaging and ideal for sharing online. They can be used to promote almost any product or service, but we’re most familiar with video trailers for new movies. There’s a lot to be learned from movie trailers because a great book advertisement does all the same things as a great movie trailer. It should…
…set up the basic premise.
Successful movie trailers give us just enough information the basic premise to intrigue us. It tells us what the story is about without giving away any crucial plot points. Book trailers, whether as video or audio clips, should also introduce potential readers to the story and peak interest.
…introduce some of the characters.
Just like movie trailers, book trailers should focus on one of two of the major characters. It gives potential readers an idea of who the protagonist is and who the antagonist is, but doesn’t overwhelm by providing entire character histories or introducing too many characters at once.
…capture the mood of the movie.
The overall mood of the book is likely what will draw potential readers in. When putting together a book trailer, focus on the emotion of the story instead of individual plot points. The important thing is to make people interested in whatever world you’ve created in your book.
…not give too much away.
It may be critical to grab the audience’s attention, but giving away too much of the plot can take spoil the story. Offer only enough about your book to interest your readers, but not so much that they know what happens before they read it.
If you’re interested in producing a book trailer to promote your next book, contact NWA Publishing. We can help you produce a high-quality video that will catch the attention of potential readers and buyers.
