Sinclair Books discussion

What are your views on book trailers? I am undecided if I will make one for, Five Days Notice, up till now all my books have had a trailer and some have had two. I don't know how many sales that translates into because some of the trailers flopped and some have done very well. What are your views on trailers?

I like looking at them unless they're too long, but I don't think mine translated into sales. I had one professionally done, but it wasn't any better than the last one I did.

I think it is a hard thing to use. I think the medium is there to generate thousands of thousands of hits and direct traffic, but its hard to tap into that and create something unique. I have done trial and error and mixed up all my trailers over the years. The simpliest ones seemed to work the best. One video recieved over 3000 hits, another has got 15, lol. Some worked, some failed dramatically.

If I got 3000 hits I'd be over the moon.

Do you have any idea why you got 3,000 hits with one trailer and not with the other? It's so hard to know what works and what doesn't. Sometimes I think I get more hits because it's a slow news day! lol. Seriously, need to know why something works, even if I'm just guessing. I have a trailer I'm waiting for my nephew to put the music on. I like trailers. Short is good. They give the reader something else to look at if you keep them on your blog or website. Did you get all those hits on youtube, Alex?

I got most of the hits on youtube. I think myspace helped before it went mental, lol. I use to post videos in myspace groups, which were really popular, but they changed the format and you can't really do that now. I think long excerpts in videos do better than the dramatic blurb type video. I am going to throw together a, crescent moon video (but might do a martial arts demo for it, lol) and a five days notice one, but just photoshop images like I did with the book cover. I have been friending people on youtube, so I hope to comment on some pages, put out a thing about the new video, and hopefully people will come along and like it. Also linking videos to decent videos helped. I linked one to a stephen king book and had over 300 hits in a day, another I liked to a romance scene from grey's anantomy and had about 200 hits in a day. Just update and re-link every other week.

Wow, I have NO idea how to do anything on Youtube. Another avenue to explore, learn and conquer. Yipes! First I have to get my trailer finished. It's done except for music. My son helped with the video. I think it looks pretty good, but music will make it.
I'm impressed you've done all that. How brilliant to link to Stephen King and Grey's. You're made to market...after writing, of course.

That's great advice, Alex. Jean, I don't know how to do it either, but I'm going to find out.

Alex wrote: "I think it is a hard thing to use. I think the medium is there to generate thousands of thousands of hits and direct traffic, but its hard to tap into that and create something unique. I have done ..."

How did you drive people to your trailer? That's the piece i can't figure out?

I second that question.

Well, honestly I didn't... take Before The Dawn trailer, it has over 500 hits. The key is wording the tags, that means if someone looks to romance movie clip or something, your video appears in the menu, but that is really hard to do. Don't mention BOOK, you get put into rubbish section. I use Romance Clip or something along that lines. You find an active video that people love, maybe a popular movie with a popular band song, you then link to it if you can and that will be good for a day or two with people going "MMM What's this video?" and clicking on it, but after a day or so the hits stop, so you have to switch to another video. After a while, once you start getting views the video starts to generate traffic on its own and people start linking to you.

Thank you for this advice.

You are more than welcome.

Thanks for the tips.

no worries, Kent. It does work, but again I don't know how many of those hits translated into sales. I was thinking instead of doing a book trailer, I would do an author trailer. Showcase my work, my rankings, my reviews. A sort of this is who I am and this is what I do or this is what I write, this is my site, type of thing. Not thought it through, but youtube is a tool if it is used correctly.

That sounds like a great idea. We call that branding in advertising. People get to know you, read your works and become fans. Then they want to read anything you write. I think that is how the biggest authors got there.

I was thinking instead of loads of videos that do okay. Focus on one that is about "You" and push that. Even include ideas and plots that are not out, in the works and so on. I think I will give this a go rather than make seperate trailers from now on.

That's really smart. You'll see you will get followers who will read everything you write. Brilliant way to go, Alex.

Maybe I did something good then - here's the link to a all purpose author trailer I made to stream on my laptop at a recent author faire I was at and I put it up on You Tube too

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

I worked in broadcast media advertising straight out of college and so I try to pull out all the stops to promote, promote, promote!

Lee, I come from direct marketing background. We have much in common.

That is a great video. You beat me to it!!!

Yes, we do!

Alex Sinclair Author of Five Days Notice wrote: "That is a great video. You beat me to it!!!"

Thanks!

Great Video, Lee Ann. You have written so many things. I'm impressed!

I said I wasn't going to do a trailer, but I have such a great idea for The Way of the Crescent Moon. So I may just put that together. I think also I spend a lot of hours promoting and never really had an opportunity to promote trailers. I know there is a big blog site that does a trailer of the month type thing, which goes on all year around, but I have never actually found the right entry time so keep missing it. Will have to check if youtube has forums/groups where you can talk about videos and books.

Such great ideas, Alex. Go for it.

Alex Sinclair Author of Five Days Notice wrote: "I got most of the hits on youtube. I think myspace helped before it went mental, lol. I use to post videos in myspace groups, which were really popular, but they changed the format and you can't re..."how did you link it to the stephen king trailer? thanks, therese

Basically you go and locate the trailer on youtube by typing stephen king. There are loads, harry potter ones and all sorts. If it requires permission then there really is no point, but most of them don't. You leave a comment, but select video reply, pick your video and it appears beneath the stephen king one.

Great! I will have to try that when I have a chance!
Thanks!

No worries. I have decided not to attempt trailers anymore. I never get a chance to use them in promotion, which is a shame, but will most likely do a Sinclair Books Trailer every month for the winners and top books and promote that instead.

Alex Sinclair Author of Five Days Notice wrote: "Basically you go and locate the trailer on youtube by typing stephen king. There are loads, harry potter ones and all sorts. If it requires permission then there really is no point, but most of the..."thanks alex