Creating a simple book trailer:
A HandBookLive Interview with Dulce Rodrigues.
We start this series of interviews about book trailers (book videos) by talking to Dulce Rodrigues, the award-winning author of Barry’s Adventure and other children’s books in English, French, Portuguese and German. The book trailer we will discuss today is for her book “Once Upon a Time… a House”, and it was produced by Dulce herself.
Laura Beken: “Dulce, it is our pleasure to talk to you today! Could you, please tell us briefly about your book first? What made you write this particular story? How did it come about?”
Dulce Rodrigues: “As any of my children’s books, “Once Upon a Time… a House” also has a story behind the story. Some few years ago, a radio channel in Luxembourg asked me to write a kids’ story that could be broadcast on their Sunday morning programs. I then started writing this chapter story in which the beginning of a new chapter is the end of the previous chapter. Years later, I knew about a literary contest in France where my story would fit. I participated in the contest, and the story was awarded a third prize, which was a pleasure for me, since I was competing with French native writers. The book was published a few years later also in France. The first edition is sold out (only a few copies still left), and meanwhile I published the story as an e-book with Amazon; it has been in the TOP 100 of its category since then. The same story is now out in Portugal, and it is expected to be published as well in the States and UK, possibly around March next year. This is a very cute story that would be a great script for a children’s opera or (better still) musical. Producers might be interested… the message is sent…”
“Now let’s talk about the book trailer for this book. Have you done book trailers before? What made you decide to do a book trailer for this book? Did the publisher ask for it? Did someone suggest you do a book trailer?”
Dulce Rodrigues: “I have done videos but not real book trailers. I had noticed that, besides film trailers, book trailers are also being used as a marketing tool. Authors who publish with well-known mainstream publishers do not need make any marketing effort, because it’s the publisher’s name that is “selling” the book in the first instance. Authors like me who do not have that same publishing and publicity channels need a strong tool to give visibility to her/his work. I had already converted one or two short kids’ stories into videos and PowerPoint presentations, so I decided to try and make a book trailer, too.”
“I understand that you have produced this book trailer and your other videos all by yourself. What tools do you use?”
Dulce Rodrigues: “For creating the videos, I used Windows Movie Maker. As to the images and/or video clips, my own stock images or video clips were fine; sometimes I transformed them a little bit (using Photoshop and/or Paint). As for the music, I have a small program that allows me to create my own, else I used music that already existed and picked it from the internet.”
“How much time does it take to produce a book trailer?”
Dulce Rodrigues: “In general depending on the material you have available for immediate use (which usually never happens), you may count on three and a half to four hours. Time goes fast when you’re creating something from scratch. In average, it will take around four hours, let’s say half a working day to produce a book trailer.”
“Anything you would do different now that you went through the process of creating a book trailer?”
Dulce Rodrigues: “I might change the very beginning and put the book cover right there, instead of the first page of the presentation. I might also put some “voice” instead of music only.”
“What is your advice for those authors who want to do a book trailer themselves? Is it worth it, and when does it make sense to do it yourself?”
Dulce Rodrigues: “It only makes sense to do it ourselves if we have enough time and not enough money to invest, which is my case, since I’m retired now. Even if we have a reasonable amount of money to spend, it’s always sensible to consider the question of doing it ourselves in our free time. Book trailers are very expensive when we hire someone to do them, and we might not get any financial compensation for such an investment in terms of book sales. If you spent more money having the book trailer done by another person than you’ll get in royalties, you cannot say you did good business. If you have some free time and some creativity, go ahead and do it yourself.”
“Where and how do you promote your books and your book trailers? Where do you post your book trailers?”
Dulce Rodrigues: “I post my book trailers on my websites www.dulcerodrigues.info and www.barry4kids.net, and on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/people/Dulce-Rodrigues/1454616123, on Linkedin http://pt.linkedin.com/in/dulcerodrigues, and on websites for video and photo sharing like Youtube. I might promote them as well through email to certain friends and acquaintances, who will in turn email them to other people. Two of my book trailers are posted on HandBookLive.com www.handbooklive.com/company/dulce_rodrigues”
“Do you think producing a book trailer is necessary and why (or why not)? Does it really help?”
Dulce Rodrigues: “As said above, book trailers are proving to be a good marketing tool. Less famous authors need make an additional marketing effort, and I believe book trailers are becoming a strong tool to the purpose of promoting authors. Book trailers are fun to watch, and children love them.”
Laura Beken: “Thank you so much, Dulce! All of us here at HandBookLive are wishing you all the best and looking forward to seeing more of your videos and learning about your new books!”
For more information about Dulce Rodrigues and her work visit www.dulcerodrigues.info
