Thanks
for having me as your guest again, Liza! Today I’m back to show off my book
trailer for ESCAPE FROM ZULAIRE, my latest best selling science fiction
romance, and to talk a bit about how this mini movie got made.
I'm
always thrilled to have a new book trailer to debut and it's such fun to work
with the awesomely talented (and patient) Theresa McClinton of Making It Reel. There’s
an ongoing debate among authors whether book trailers really are good promo,
whether Readers are influenced by them…and I’d love feedback in the comments,
if anyone would like to offer an opinion. Personally, I enjoy having a trailer
since it may be the closest I ever get to having a “movie” made from my book! I
treat myself to a trailer, you might say…and of course, it could always be the
one that goes viral. You never know LOL!
First I
give Theresa the book cover art, the blurb and any really quotable reviews
there might be. Then we start by selecting the music - she sends me a set of
suggestions, which I dutifully listen to and make notes about. Last time I got
brave and went questing on the soundtrack site for a few more choices (fast
tempo, drums - that's me LOL). Ultimately we went with her top choice but
bookmarked my favorite for possible use on our next SFR trailer. It just
wasn't quite the right "feel" for ESCAPE.
Then
it's on to the images and video clips. She and I go back and forth on the stock
photos as she has excellent instincts for what might work but ultimately it's
my book and my characters and we authors are funny about the little worlds we
create. (Which Theresa totally gets as she is an author herself
For
ESCAPE FROM ZULAIRE, the requirements included the far future, an alien planet
and some alien sentients. Without a Star Trek or Star Wars-sized budget, I
think Theresa was quite artistic in choosing the photos that made the final
shoot. There is a whitewater rafting incident in the novel and my characters do
visit a monastery high in the mountains seeking help along the way, so we could
use some Earthly photos to suggest the feel of those episodes on Zulaire. After
all, Zulaire has to be quite Earthlike for my characters to survive without
life support or spacesuits.
Luckily
for us, the female cover model had other poses available we could use in the
video but the hero, much as we both liked him, as far as we can tell, took all
of nine photos in one session, once, and that was it. So we had something of a
challenge in assembling a video that told the story effectively in about two
minutes, using stock photos of the original book cover art models.
Once
Theresa has assembled a rough cut of the video she sends it to me to review.
First I'll watch the trailer two or three times without analyzing or
commenting, just to get an overall sense for the feel of it, does it convey the
feel of the book to me, are any elements standing out - good or bad - on
repeated viewings? I make detailed notes for her, with the exact spot in the
video that is affected, down to the second. Some elements are only a few
seconds long but they all add up to the final product. Sometimes I want
the wording changed a bit and sometimes I'm not resonating with a particular
photo or video clip.
I hope
you'll enjoy our mini movie (and the book of course, which so far has spent
nearly two months on the Amazon Science Fiction Romance Best Seller lists...)
