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| Murder Must Advertise |
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Book Video Trailers Thanks to Doug Hewitt I’m not new to book publishing. My suspense novel SPEAR was published five years ago and has since gone out of print. But when my publisher pushed ahead the publishing schedule for my murder mystery The Dead Guy, way ahead, I was caught flat footed. I wanted to have a full promotional plan in place. Instead, I had to improvise. One of the new promotional tools I’ve learned about is video trailers. Because I enjoy making home movies, this was the perfect venue for me. I began with a serious one using Microsoft Movie Maker. The main thing I learned about the process was to keep the video as short as possible and to make the music upbeat. Both should be dramatic. Here’s the result of my You Tube upload: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmsHHgavrqI Note that it’s a good idea to have a screenshot of the video saved on your computer as a picture so you can use it for other promotional purposes. Hence, the screenshot (the murder mystery takes place in Detroit, of course):
The book trailer was good, I thought. It even got a favorable mention by culture commentator Linda Richardson at the Sun Sentinel website. But I wanted something more entertaining, something that could stand on its own. And so I turned to comedy. I made a video in which a couple of Mr. Potato Heads reenact a scene from The Dead Guy. Here’s the funny book trailer video URL on You Tube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMVpQiDu-F0&feature=channel And here’s the accompanying screenshot:
I don’t know which is better, a serious video trailer or a humorous one. Maybe it’s best to have both. But one thing I do know. You should always offer a free chapter from your book on your website. So if anyone is interested in the opening chapter of The Dead Guy, go to www.Hewittsbooks.com.
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| Site sponsored by
Jeffrey Marks. |
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