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I made my
own video trailer and you can too - by Afton Locke
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.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UR45UcF5XhM |
