Rachel Hauck - Guest Blogger

Rachel Hauck is an award-winning, best selling author. Her book, Love Starts With Elle is a RITA finalist. Her next book, written with country music star Sara Evans, Sweet By and By, will release this fall.

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Book trailers and all that jazz

I’ve always been intrigued by book trailers. Conceptually, trailers are a great way to bring visual imagery of the story to readers. But in execution, trailers often leave something to be desired.

Mostly, book trailers all look, sound and feel the same. Understandable. We’re learning how to do “this” thing. Trailers follow the same format. Still pictures fading in and out with text, perhaps a voiceover or music. I usually only make it fifteen seconds into a book trailer before moving on.

Book trailers are hard to make unique. Publishers and writers don’t have the budget to do a Hollywood level, heart stopping, tear jerking, laugh-out-loud trailer. Those are a production process unto themselves.

When Thomas Nelson released my book, Love Starts With Elle, I had the idea to do a book trailer. Hmm, but how? So far, my video creation talent is sub-zero, but for the first time since I’d started writing, I knew someone who did.

A good friend, Jeremy Vickory, had moved back in town after a four movie stint with Pixar. While his specialty was light effects in animated films, he had enough tools to do what I wanted. I called him up.

“How much to create an animated Elle for me?”

My idea was to actually have a conversation with Elle as if she were real. By the time I’d finished writing her story, she was real to me. Why not help the readers see her as I did?

I wrote a script, convinced my friend Chelle to be Elle’s voice and a few days later we filmed at Jeremy’s house with a video camera. Easy peasy.

A few days later, I had a book trailer. I loved the opportunity to talk to readers about the book, despite my bad hair day, and let them know how much I loved this story.

Here’s a couple of things to keep in mind while making a book trailer.

1. Keep it under two minutes. The shorter the better. Remember you’re competing with all kinds of videos and graphic imagery on the Internet.

2. Be as unique as possible with your concept. As writers we work to find the uniqueness in our stories, to say something that’s never been said before, and we should do the same with book trailers. Get a concept, then turn it upside down and inside out to find the unique angle.

3. Get to the point. We understand what it means to hook the reader in story form, do the same for your book trailer. Let enough of the story to come out to intrigue the viewer. Hint at the story, set the hook, then end it.

4. Hold off make a book trailer if you’re not ready. No book trailer is better than a bad book trailer.

5. Invest. While Jeremy gave me a discount, seeing as I was paramount in his spiritual life as a young man, a-hem, I paid for his service. It wasn’t cheap. But well worth it. I received an excellent product provided by someone who knew what he was doing.

6. Get the word out. Create a You Tube account and post your book trailer. Include it in your blog tour. Send a copy to your publisher so they can hand it to the sales team. Give a copy to friends, and family. Take it to your local book store for the staff to view.

Marketing is hard for those of us who view the world through a computer screen all day. As a full time writer, the cybernet is my office. Social media sites are my water cool breaks. Makes friends on the web who might want to share your trailer.

Look around your life and see who might be able to help you market or promote your book. Some authors are friends with celebrities or name authors. Can they endorse your book? Share a book signing? Do you know an artist who can help create a standout web site or bookmark?

I remember when I started writing, I said this prayer. “God, you’re my editor, agent and promoter.” Since then, He’s brought what I needed, when I needed it.

One of the keys to the Novel Journey is to be patient. The evanescent “everyone” is doing book trailers so we want to do one too. But is it more prudent to wait until you have the tools to do one with excellence.

Look, I’m not saying my book trailer is the most excellent in the world. Hardly. But I am glad I waited until I had a fun concept and the talent to execute it.

What ever your marketing notions, ideas or frustrations, ask God to bring the right help at the right time. If you can’t do what you want, wait. Either way, I’m guessing all you need is most-likely right there in your own world.

To view the trailer for Love Starts With Elle, click here.

The Sweet By and By

A redemptive story from multi-platinum recording artist Sara Evans.

Jade Fitzgerald left the pain of her past in the dust when she headed out for college a decade ago. Now she's thriving in her career and glowing in the light of Max Benson's love.

But then Jade's hippie mother, Beryl Hill, arrives in Whisper Hollow, Tennessee, for Jade's wedding along with Willow, her wild younger sister. Their arrival forces Jade to throw open the dark closets of her past--the insecurity of living with a restless, wandering mother, the silence of her absent father, and the heart-ripping pain of first-love's rejection.

Turns out Beryl has a secret of her own. She needs reconciliation with her oldest daughter before illness takes her life. In the final days leading to the wedding, Jade meets the One who shows her that the past has no hold on her future. With a little grace, they'll meet in the middle, maybe even before that sweet by and by.