book trailer

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The making of a book trailer

My name is Maria Connor, of My Author Concierge, and I am Jacki’s assistant. Jacki invited me to write a guest blog on our recent experience in creating the book trailer for her new audiobook release, A CODE OF THE HEART.

There are many services available that will create book trailers, but in reality, these video teasers aren’t that difficult to put together and it’s fun to occasionally venture into a different creative sphere. Assembling visual and audio elements requires a different perspective than working with words, but it is no less rewarding.

Join me now for a behind-the-scenes look at creating book trailers.

Developing a book trailer starts with a script. This can be the book cover copy (also called the book blurb or book summary), an excerpt from the book, or something entirely different. For A CODE OF THE HEART, we used a brief excerpt that reflected the storyline, plus the tag line for the Code Breakers series. The script can either be narrated or added as text.

The next step in the process is to assemble the graphic and audio components. This can be a challenge, as you must comply with copyright laws. You must have permission or be authorized to use the content in your trailer. To avoid any problems, I either use images owned by myself or the author, or stock art/music I have purchased. You can also use material under a Creative Commons license.

Finding licensed images for Regency romance can sometimes be a challenge. One of the images we considered using for this book trailer was discarded when we realized the male model–posed in a classic historical romance cover embrace–was wearing a gold chain necklace. We didn’t want any readers complaining about the historical inaccuracy of such an image so we selected a different graphic. Another way to solve the problem of limited Regency England images is to look for photos that reflect the story elements without specifically portraying them. For example, in this book trailer, the “spilled” tea cup represents the poisoning, danger and betrayal incidents in the story, while the British flag was selected to signify the intrigue and danger to the British monarch.

I use Windows Movie Maker to assemble the audio and video elements into a finished product. For the audio “mixing,” I use Audacity, a user-friendly program that is essentially just cutting and pasting portions of sound tracks together.

A Code of the Heart Book Trailer from Jacki Delecki on Vimeo.

For a sample of Jacki’s new audiobook, listen HERE.

I hope you enjoy our creative efforts and that we’ve made you curious to learn more about Jacki’s Regency romantic suspense! If you’d like more information about Jacki’s audiobooks, you can find A CODE OF LOVE and A CODE OF THE HEART on Audible, Amazon and iTunes.