with Clare F. Price
We are delighted to welcome novelist Clare F. Price to Omnimystery News.
Clare's debut novel is the technothriller Web of Betrayal (CFP Media Group; June 2014 trade paperback and ebook formats). She tells us today more about creating a compelling book trailer, like the one that accompanies her book, which you can watch here.
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Photo provided courtesy of
Clare F. Price
We live in a video obsessed culture. We love to watch videos. We watch videos on our laptops, tablets, even our phones. We educate, entertain and amuse ourselves on YouTube. Video has become one of the most popular ways to consume content today especially for younger readers.
As authors we tend to be more comfortable with words rather than visual content. But as authors who need to sell books, a book trailer is an essential tool. Just like that movie "you have to see" when you see the previews, a book trailer can introduce your book to a new audience. If you are an established author with a fan following and a platform, a book trailer can create excitement that drives presales and media buzz that increases PR opportunities. If you are a new author, a book trailer is even more important. It will increase your visibility online as you spread it through social media, link it to your website and use it for inexpensive advertising.
I recommend the following four steps when creating a book trailer:
1. Keep it short. I recommend your book trailer be under a minute. Social Media research has shown that videos of less than 60 seconds are shared more than often than those over a minute. Long trailers tend to lose the audience and they click away. If you are using Twitter for promotion, Twitter's Vine videos are only 6 seconds. Can you capture an audience in 6 seconds? Yes, you can! Even if it's not a crazy cat video. My book trailer video is 45 seconds.
2. Don't tell the entire story. Drop hints. Tease your viewers. Great book (and movie) trailers use scenes, music and quick cut visuals to create emotions and give you just enough to compel you to read or see it. In the trailer for Web of Betrayal, we grabbed three key plot elements and gave them one line each. For me, that was the hardest part of creating the trailer. Writers like to write!
3. Study movie trailers and great commercials. Movie trailer and commercial producers are experts at creating emotion, excitement and most of all getting you ready to buy in 60 seconds or less. Book trailers from bestselling authors at major publishing houses are also good for figuring out what you want to do (and not do) in your trailer. Zero in on the ones you can't resist and make a list of why — action, visuals, music, etc. Do the same with those that you dislike. That will be invaluable when it comes time to creating your own.
4. Hire a Professional, if you can. High quality book trailers aren't cheap to make. They typically cost from a few hundred dollars to several thousand dollars which is not always in the writer's budget. But to a have an impact, your book trailer must be visual, exciting and compelling in just a few seconds. That is an art not a science. A professional has the eye and expertise to make it happen. I used The Project Shaman and it was worth every penny. If you can't use a professional, get advice from a graphics designer who can help you choose the right visuals and music for your trailer.
A compelling, well-crafted book trailer is fast becoming as critical to marketing your book as your book's cover and reader reviews. I'd love to hear what you think.
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Clare witnessed the birth of the commercial Internet firsthand as a research director with the Gartner Group. That experience prompted her to write her first novel, Web of Betrayal. In her career she has been a business journalist, tech industry journalist, Internet industry analyst and a VP of marketing for several software startups.
Clare is an Ohio native and a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, with a B.A. degree in Rhetoric. She currently lives in Sacramento, California with her two Shetland Sheepdogs, Dan and Toby.
For more information about the author, please visit her website at WebOfBetrayal.com and her author page on Goodreads, or find her on Facebook and Twitter.
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Web of Betrayal
Clare F. Price
A Technothriller
There's no hiding in cyberspace …
The year is 1994, the dawn of the Internet Age, when companies from Silicon Valley to London are fighting to claim the billions to be made on the new information highway.
Peter Ellis, an aggressive investigative reporter struggling to repair his damaged reputation after being framed for rigging a story, attends the Consumer Electronics Show and learns that a skilled programmer known for cracking secure computer code has mysteriously disappeared.
Peter's quest to find the missing programmer unwittingly pits him against a brilliant hacker and deranged killer with an agenda of his own: taking revenge on the man who ruined his life — computer industry luminary David Lockwood — who is now poised to introduce a product that will change the Internet forever.
As Peter is drawn into the deadly game of betrayal and murder, he is faced with losing everything he holds dear: his career, his one true love, even his own life. Can he find the programmer's encoded disk — which the holds the key to the killer's identity — before his luck runs out?
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