Saturday, December 20, 2008

I made my own video trailer and you can too


When my erotic romance novel got accepted, I started making my promotion list and organized it from most important/likely I would accomplish down to the least. Making a video trailer was way toward the bottom since I figured I'd have to spend a lot of money paying some professional company to do it and I'm trying to be frugal with the ol' promo budget.

That changed when I read somewhere that Windows Media Maker could produce an adequate movie. Sure, it would be nice to hire actors and put them in a fancy set, but that costs money. (Unless your friends look good and can act.)

You can do a very nice movie with just still pictures. And if you want to stick some digital video clips in there, you can. My digital camera takes short digital video segments. You can use pictures you've taken yourself or go to royalty-free photo sites to buy inexpensive images. (I don't recommend grabbing pictures off other web sites and using them without permission.) There are also royalty-free music sites.

Windows Media Maker isn't hard to learn. Just read the Help files and play around with it. There are a lot of neat video and transition effects. Like Flash, it uses a timeline to show each frame. If you have audio/music, there's a separate layer for that.

Keep it short like around 1 minute and keep your text brief. Use enticing phrases to hook the reader. Don't try to get the whole plot in there.

I think it makes it more interesting to have some pictures of heroes and heroines, individually and/or embracing. But just because it's erotic romance doesn't mean it has to look like an x-rated movie. Often less is more.

Use colors, fonts, pictures, and music to match the tone and mood of your book.

Show your book cover so readers will recognize it later.
Show your web site URL. This will be easier for readers to remember and pull up later than detailed information like buy links, ISBN's, etc.

When it comes time to compile your movie, you may be shocked at the file size and might have to make it less complex. The file Windows Media Maker generates is *.wmv and plays with Windows Media Player.

Go to youtube and search on "erotic romance" to see a lot of great examples.

Promote your new video on various sites. Some just want a link. Others want the EMBED code. Just go to your entry on youtube and click the appropriate link to grab the code for your video.

Finally, check mine out at this link or see below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UR45UcF5XhM

Afton Locke
Unlock your darkest fantasies…
www.aftonlocke.com
Cicada - available from EC - paranormal/BDSM erotic romance


No comments: