Over the last week or so, I have created a book trailer for each of the three novels included in Generation One of the Chronicles of the Chosen: Beyond the Last Tree, While the Cat's Away, and Betrayer. The trailer for Book One is up and running on youtube. If you take a look, let me know what you think - or even better - GO BUY THE BOOK! <G>
Here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Imo9s5Mc4Ic
Creating these book trailers was an interesting experience. I worked in PowerPoint as it is a program I am fairly familiar with. I was excited to see you could save a slideshow as a video, which allowed me to post these trailers more places. I learned how to add video, add sound over the video, and how to add an audio file. (Portrait of the artist as techie, as a friend of mine used to put it.) I also came across a number of really neat FREE sites for obtaining video, etc.
Here's a few of them:
http://www.motionbackgroundsforfree.com
http://incompetech.com/
http://www.public-domain-image.com
With these sites I was able to build what I feel are pretty compelling book trailers. The images I couldn't get for free came from www.dreamstime.com I feel Dreamstime is a little pricey (unless you go for the HUGE package of credits at $200 some dollars, which I did not do). However, their images cannot be beat! I spent $20 - 30 for the ones in these trailers and I feel they are well worth it.
Here's an example of what I did with one of the Dreamstime images. I wanted to create an image of Coven, the mortal, to use. As I didn't have time to draw it (or energy to be honest!, I had to use a real man, and then had to manipulate the image to make it look like the character. I did this using Paint Shop Pro, which I feel is a pretty right brain friendly program. I don't understand rasta layers and all that, but I can certainly point, click and manipulate!
This is the Dreamstime image I chose for Coven. Now my hero does not wear plaid, have blue eyes, or brown hair, but I could see him looking at me out of these human eyes. So...
...I took the photo into Paint Shop and altered it using a combination of cloning and a solid fill to make his hair black and then 'painted' his eyes green. Then...
...I painted out his shirt and used a gamma setting to darken the entire image. And voila! as they used to say, a workable image of my hero.
It's always a toss-up when you are trying to promote a book whether or not to use the image of a character. Some readers prefer to create their own in their head. But with social media nowadays and the need to have visual 'punch', there seems little choice.
Let me know what you think about all of the above and check back here soon for the release of Book Two and a link to its trailer.
