How to make a book trailer

Dear friends,

I'm pleased as punch at all the wonderful messages and such I'm getting today about my new book trailer for LONE STAR DEATH.  In general, the reviews are good and I've had quite a few views overnight.  And some even think that the "silent movie" treatment suits the book.  That's great, because I've still to figure out how to put audio with the thing.  Still, it was a first project, is a tad rough, but it did strike a fire in me to do more of them.

I've always loved multi-media projects.  Back in school, I was always the kiss-up who begged the teacher to let me run the film projector.  One of my projects for Speech class was a "multi-media extravaganza" using an opaque projector, cheap tape recorder, a poster and hand-outs.  LOL.  In college, while studying for my Early Childhood Education certificate (before my art degree), I took a few courses in multi-media where I got to play with bigger, fancier equipment.

Then, when I was chosen to set up one of the first Macintosh networks in Austin, I really had fun.  And recently, I've discovered GarageBand, iMovie, iTunes---and it's all multi-media again, just a bit more high-tech this time.

I had sort of forgotten about all this until I started messing around with Powerpoint two days ago.  I worked for Microsoft back when they first bought Powerpoint, and I have to say that it's been greatly improved since then.  It's still buggy as hell (LOL) but still fun to use for slide shows, etc.

So, this morning everyone's asking me HOW I made my book trailer.  Here's the short version:

It's not that hard to do--unless you want music in it.  Let's just say I'm a bit balder today from that audio thang.

Write a short script for the text, distilling your story into as few words as possible.  Mine is a tad long, but nobody's complaining much, yet, so I'll leave it for now.  The longer, though, the more memory it gobbles, so that's one consideration.  Audio also gobbles a LOT of memory.

Use Powerpoint and make a slide show, adding text, photos, pictures, whatever.  Then save it as a movie, and upload to YouTube.  That's the simplified version.

The long version-----insert where needed---pull at  your hair, go find some snacks, open a bottle of wine, drink a little, eat a little, drink some more, go yell at the cats who are scratching at the door wondering what all the strange noises are, go gobble down dinner, drink a little more wine----repeat.  Oh yes, and there was cursing.  Lots of cursing.

 The only step I didn't take, and should have, was to ingest massive quantities of chocolate. 

Maybe I'll try that today. 

Happy trails!

bobbi c.