Saturday, April 16, 2011

Author Michael Murphy

 Michael Murphy is visiting today to talk about book trailers. He creates his own and he has some advice for other authors who want to create the trailers for their books. Michael is an award-winning author who lives in Arizona with his wife, two cats, four dogs and five chickens. His seventh, and latest, book, Scorpion Bay has just come out, so I’m excited he had the time to stop by Straight From Hel.

Please welcome Michael Murphy.


Producing a Book Trailer

Since I’ve produced book trailers for most of my seven novels I’m often asked about their value. I recently read a post from another author that indicated only family and friends read an author’s book trailer. Because I have more than 6,000 views of my first book trailer for Try and Catch the Wind, I replied that I didn’t have that many friends.

My experience has convinced me that book trailers can be a valuable component of a comprehensive book promotion program. If you are an author about to release a book and you haven’t produced a book trailer, I urge you to give one serious consideration. Fortunately you have a number of options.

For a professionally produced book trailer, expect to pay between $200 and $500. There are a number of companies that produce book trailers and they do an excellent job, such as Circle of Seven Productions. If choose to produce one yourself (if I can do it, you can), be sure to use royalty free images and music. This isn’t as hard or costly as one might expect. For my Scorpion Bay book trailer, I paid $4.30 for all the music and sound effects through Itunes.



Images and music should reflect the genre of your book. If your book is spooky and creepy, match it with that kind of music and those images. Soft and sweet...well you get the idea.

After your video is produced, spend as much time inspecting the detail as you did with your novel. No typos! Post the video to You Tube and link the video to your website and blog. But don’t stop there. There are a number of sites that will post your book trailer for free, such as Blazing Trailers.

Market your book trailer like you would your novel. Use social media to get out the word and track the traffic on You Tube.

Will a book trailer translate to book sales? I don’t have any direct evidence to support my position, but from my experience the answer is yes.

Thank you Michael.

If you’d like to get to know more about Michael Murphy, you can hook up with him on Facebook and Twitter.

You can find Scorpion Bay, his thriller (with a sense of humor), on Kindle and Amazon.

If anyone has a question or comment for Michael, the comments section is open. I’ll start us off: Michael, you said you found music and sound effects on iTunes. Is there a special section just for that or did you listen to various songs and then seek permission to use them?

26 comments:

  1. That's a good question you asked, Helen. I'm anxious to hear the answer. I'd love to do a book trailer but have been terrified to try. One more thing to learn...
    Thank you for this post, Michael and Helen!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Good advice.

    Since I don't have a book out, I haven't had to tackle book trailers. I find them intimidating to do myself. Good to know I can hire a service.

    ReplyDelete
  3. There is a special itunes section for royalty free music. At the itunes store, click thke music icon and in the search type in royalty free music. There's a lot of it.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Theresa, I too was intimidated at producing a trailer. If you have time before your book comes out, I'd suggest playing around with the software, adding text, music and pictures and by the time your book comes out you may the confidence to try it yourself. Good luck with your book and your trailer.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thank you Michael. I do need to explore the iTunes store.

    I'm with you, Theresa, creating my own trailer is intimidating.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Helen, I can't believe how your posts are always so timeous for me! Last week I finished my book trailer - the first I've ever made, and a steep learning curve, and early this morning I wrote a guest post for another blog on my whole process (completely different to Michael's, only topic is the same)! The one thing I didn't know where to start looking was where to display the trailer, so I was pleased to get the link. Thanks for that!
    Judy, South Africa

    ReplyDelete
  7. I just looked at a trailer where it was the author talking. What's your opinion about a trailer being "author centric" vs. trying to create images/sounds that reflect the book?

    ReplyDelete
  8. Good info Michael! I think I'm going to give it a try soon. Thanks!!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Really glad my publisher created my book trailer! Turned out cool,but not to the tune of 6000 hits.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Krissy, if you, or anyone else here needs any help with their book trailer, go to my website and email me and I'll get back and do what I can. I'm far from a techno geek...well maybe I'm a geek, so it's not that far...but I was able to do it.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I'm so excited to read this and have another resource for when I get that far. Now would be a good time to start collecting potential images, sound effects and music--not to mention, the techincal stuff to do it myself. Thank you Michael and Helen for sharing!

    ReplyDelete
  12. I use to really not get book trailers, but I’m coming around to them. I’ve seen some really awesome ones.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Something like a book trailer is intimidating, but there are others who have learned the process and willing to help by telling you what and how they did it. Like Michael.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Good advice, Michael. And timely. I'm trying to figure out how to do a book trailer for my newest release, Light Bringer.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Hi Michael. Thanks for this post. Great information.

    Jordan
    www.evaprim.com

    ReplyDelete
  16. Hi Michael. Thanks for this post. Great information.

    Jordan
    www.evaprim.com

    ReplyDelete
  17. Hi Michael. Thanks for this post. Great information.

    Jordan
    www.evaprim.com

    ReplyDelete
  18. I neglected to mention you can now post your book trailer to your Amazon author page. Here's mine. It's on the lower right portion of the page. http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0030HEZCY

    ReplyDelete
  19. A good way to drive traffic to your book trailer on You Tube is to seek out other authors' book trailers and leave comments if you like the trailer. It gives readers who are viewing their book trailer an opportunity to see you and your comments. I'm just sayin...

    ReplyDelete
  20. Geez, 6000 views! Congrats Michael. I have to go to my trailer (http://www.blazingtrailers.com/show/51/) once a month to blow off the cobwebs and dust it.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Thank you, Michael, for this information and terrific tips. I enjoyed watching your trailer!

    ReplyDelete
  22. Thanks for the tips on the trailers, Michael. I was out of town this weekend, so am just now catching up on some blogs.

    My son helped me make the trailer for my suspense novel, One Small Victory, when it first came out in hardback, and he wrote the music for it.

    I need to do one for my latest book, but that task is always getting bumped by something more urgent.

    ReplyDelete
  23. I have yet to do a trailer for my book. I may do one this year. Best wishes for the success of Scorpion Bay.

    ReplyDelete
  24. To me, doing a book trailer would be intimidating, but it's nice to know that it's possible to get free music clips and free pics, too.

    ReplyDelete
  25. That's a fine trailer, and also lots of good advice here. Thanks for sharing, both of you. :)

    Marvin D Wilson

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...