Tuesday, April 2, 2013

How to make an awesome book trailer for $50

Book trailers seem to be the 'trendy' thing to do at the moment, with many self-published authors creating their own trailers in Windows Movie Maker. Ever big publishers are doing it. (Of course, they have the budget to hire actors, and artists)
But what if you have a tiny budget? Say, $50 or so?
Well, that was MY budget when creating a trailer for my novel 'Alpha Girl'.

Now, don't get me wrong. There are hundreds of people out there offering to make a book trailer for you, sometimes for as little as $5, but I can guarantee that they will NOT be quality. They will look cheap, and nasty, and often drive potential readers away. I really despise book trailers that use still images. Cheap and unprofessional. (Yes, I am an art-snob)

At the other end of the scale there are people offering to make book trailers for as much as $2000. (Still, I wasn't very impressed with their work.)

Here's what I did:

Search for websites that have FREE or CHEAP stock. Websites such as:
  • www.vimeo.com (lots of free HD nature stock there!)
  • www.videohive.com (Cheap HD video footage)
  • www.audiojungle.com (for cheap royalty free music)
  • www.partnersinrhyme.com (Royalty free sound effects)

To make my trailer, I used the following stock

Sound effects:

Stock footage:

 Music


Of course, if you decide to download stock such as the cinematic titles, you will need knowledge on how to use Adobe After Effects. Lucky for me, my sister knows a little about it, and she was able to customise the animation. Packages like this also come with tutorials/instructions, so if you're feeling brave, you can try it yourself.
If you are unable to do this, Windows Movie Maker will have to suffice.


Check out the finished product:


5 comments:

  1. Thanks Kate :D Super helpful pointers! And you could have fooled me because the trailer looks like you spent a ton on it. Awesome work!

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  2. Great trailer, and thanks for all the info!

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  3. This is awesome! LOVE your trailer. Thanks so much for sharing. I've been trying to find inexpensive videos...

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  4. Good trailer...makes me want to buy the book. Thanks for the tips. I also found some free video on Vidsplay.com and Audacity is a free software download that will strip audio out of your video.

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