UPDATE: I revised it as best as I could, given my still too-limited skills:
Ok, just look at it! I’ll tell you all about how I did it and how much it cost (in terms of time and lost hair) right after, I promise!
What do you think? I really wanted to make BDSM appear first and the explanation later, but to tell you the truth, this was so difficult that I will need a week to recuperate before I’m ready to try again…
So, how did I do that? How much did it cost? Did it make any impact on sales?
I made the clip myself, at a total cost of $0 and about 10-12 hours of customising, watching tutorials and searching self-help forums. The clip was created with Adobe After Effects CC, and I started the process with a free template from After Effects Templates and added “Playing to Win” soundtrack from Free Stock Music.
Easy-peasy, right? If you don’t mind, I’m just gonna whine a bit now. If you’d rather focus on the positive stuff, just skip the following paragraph.
(Oh, my God, it hurt! I’m all for “you can do it!”, but in this particular case I have to warn you – it was hard! If you are pretty good with Photoshop, then definitely go ahead and try – just please don’t brag about how easy it is (like the kids in tutorials, seriously!). If, however, you don’t understand Photoshop layers, then save yourself from this stress. Not only the software is hard to understand, it was a nightmare to try and upload the clip directly to Twitter. After hours of trying, it turned out that while Twitter technically allows MP4 and MOV files, you can’t upload MOV from the desktop, only from mobile. What? And for whatever reason, my After Effects does not have the option of saving the file as MP4 (perhaps because it’s a trial version). Then if you think you’re so clever, and you email the MOV file to yourself with the intention of saving it to your phone and uploading to the app, the phone refuses to save the file, as it is apparently unsupported. What? I’ve managed to start a YouTube channel and posted a YouTube link to Twitter, but it just looks like a boring link on the phone, and no matter how hard I’ve tried to figure out how to embed a YouTube link, I couldn’t. If anyone knows, really knows how – please help!)
Ok, back to the positive. I HAVE A BOOK TRAILER!! Yay! I have uploaded it to my Goodreads author page (easy YouTube link and instant upload) and Amazon author page (direct upload and up to 24 hours of processing). I don’t know if I could ever tell if this makes an impact on sales, but it sure gives Shizzle, Inc an aura of a professionally published book…
Once my nerves settle, I may try it again – in fact, I was thinking of perhaps running one of the free giveaways with the option of either a book cover or a book trailer. Again, if this interests you, make sure to sign up for the Don’t Miss It! email list (see the floating banner on the right).
Gotta go look at the trailer one more time…nope, it does not get old!
Brilliant!!!!
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Thank you, Mary!
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Wowwiiieeee! I am so happy and excited for you! You rock girl 😍😘💋💋
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Thank you, Syeda 🙂
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Best wishes and love dear! 😘
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Pretty dang cool… My next big project is to figure out how I can make a trailer with whatever it is I have at my disposal! Cheers!!
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Thank you, Annette! I will definitely make it an option in my next giveaway, looks like its the next frontier that’s just too hard to cross for most authors. Have a look on fiverr – there are multiple offfers to make one from a template, at a decent cost, maybe worth the risk?
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I liked the trailer when you explained what was going on. I saw this yestersay and wondered what was up. So now I understand. Congratulations on your hard work on this trailer
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Thank you, Tony! I will definitely need to work on it some more, by slowing down BDSM and spelling out its new meaning…
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Good job on the book and the trailer! I know how difficult it is to edit out the entire video 😅
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Thank you! Omg, so much harder than expected! I naively thought that if I know Photoshop, it will be intuitive, but oh, no! Was fun though 🙂
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Very cool. You may want to add about ten frames to the BDSM panel for clarity. Great job. How much would you charge a fellow author for one of these?
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Thank you, Pete! I will have to figure that out…
Right now it takes me too long, so it would be hundreds of dollars of my time, but I do intend to get better and perhaps start doing these things to support my writing habit 🙂 I’m now sure that I will include it as an option in my next free design giveaway – make sure you’re either signed up to Don’t Miss It list or check back regularly. I think once I’ve done a couple of these, it will be much faster and therefore cost effective (otherwise I would be better off with a job at McDonalds 🙂
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Well done, you! That’s excellent. The BDSM bit is clever, if a bit fleeting. I love this idea, as i have several others of yours, but for me, I think this one is just one (giant) step too far. I’m not clever like you! Or patient. 😀
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Thank you, Cee Tee 🙂 well, then maybe I will make a trailer an option in my next giveaway – stay tuned!
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Wow!…That was awesome. Very professional. Hollywood could not have done better. I showed my mother and she liked it too. It would have been perfect for the Superbowl ads the other night.
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Omg! You are the first confirmed case of it going viral! Thank you 🙂 Adding to my rant in the previous post – once again, what’s the difference between me/my book and someone traditionally published? Doubt that as a first-time author I would get a trailer from my publisher…
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I saw your number 2 version. I like it. I see you extended one scene.
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Thank you! That’s all I managed with the template – next time I will try starting from scratch
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Woohoo!!! Nice work!! I’ve made a couple of humorous family Christmas videos on iMovie so I know how daunting this can be. That was amazing for your first try, seriously! The biggest cost is always time…
It’s really great and I’m sure you have no desire to go back and do any more editing, but the BDSM was so quick I didn’t a have time to read it! Add 3-5 seconds and you’ll have some serious shit. 🙂
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Haha, thank you! I will have to figure that out, and maybe that whole thing with just BDSM appearing and then the rest getting spelled out…for now it was just too much for my brain and Surface Pro processor – we were both close to blowing a fuse…
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Love it! I second freakinjane’s comment on the BDSM bit though.
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Thank you! Yes, I agree too – I kinda knew it, but to be honest did not know how to do it…one step at a time, will figure that out next…
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I agree with petehurry, freakinjane et al. Extend the BDSM screen. Otherwise, AWESOME job!
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Thank you 🙂 yes, I agree – just want to cry at the moment at having to figure out how to do that…the weekend is coming, so I will 🙂
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Looks great, Ana, very professional.
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Thank you, Colin 🙂
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Nicely done. It was a bit fast. I didn’t have time to read it, but the images are great.
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Thank you, Carolyn – I will have to work on it some more, just ran out of steam, sooo hard the first time around!
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Good for you! 😀 The trailer looks awesome, and I know how difficult making such a thing is, so I feel your rant. It does get easier, although for my part I was something like 30 hours into using my editing software before I started feeling like I *might* know what I was doing. Ugh.
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Thank you! And thank you for the motivation – I do want to get with it to the same ease I feel with photoshop. I know it’s possible…
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Awesome!
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Thank you so much 🙂
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Short and to the point, good work! And don’t feel bad, though I’m not THAT old yet, but some of the younger people make me ill how can bang photoshop items out.
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Oh, I can bang Photoshop out, no probs – this is light years ahead, or at least it seems that way…I have a feeling I will catch up, just have to persevere. Wish I had a more powerful computer, can you imagine doing this with a tablet?? I used Surface Pro and poor thing almost died…
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Aw, I’m happy to hear that your tablet made it through. Don’t ya love how new programs throw you curve balls? 🙂
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That’s the thing – when I bought Surface I had no plans of doing any graphics – I was going to pay someone to do my book covers, and I didn’t even have a concept of a book trailer…times change 🙂
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I agree. I have two stories besides my vampire novel that I’d like to be made into comic form, but some artists charge to much. I have a lady on retainer who drew Blackrose, my vampire cat girl for me, but she won’t draw erotic art. Makes me wish I knew how to draw.
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What about using software that changes photos to pencil drawings? You can get models for free or cheap from starnow.com, take photos, change to drawings, color up if needed, and voila!
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Why didn’t I think of that, it might work if the models could be made to resemble my cast from my erotic works. What software is it?
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Awesome 🙂 I have a phone app called Pencil Sketch, it does a great simple job. If you wanted to manipulate images further, or add strategic color, then Photoshop
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Well, I mainly use my computer, seeing that my cell’s crap :). Are there programs like that out there like that but don’t cost that much?
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I’m sure there are, but I have not used/needed them, sorry!
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It’s okay, I’ll use my bloodhound nose and sniff around. 🙂
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Not sure what you’d use a youtube book trailer for, exactly, but it looked good to me. perhaps a trifle short, if we’re speaking ad power. Might try and find a way to stretch it about 5 more seconds? I know, I know, more work… but if you mean to use it to advertise somewhere, it couldn’t hurt.
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I’ve linked it to my author profiles and will find excuses to post on social media…will definitely work on improving it in the future, just one step at a time …
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You go girl!
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Thank you!
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I like it. Snappy and straight to the point. Music is good too. Excellent and thank you for the non positive as well as the positive.
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Thank you! I just posted an updated version to the top of the same blog post…hope it made the punchline a bit punchier 🙂
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Great job!! So many amazing achievements you have achieved 🙂
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Thank you 🙂
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You’re welcome 😀
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Ana after reading your post on how difficult it was to make it, you can ignore my comment on your YouTube trailer. I liked it, but I kept missing the BDSM meaning. Great job! It does look professional.
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Just saw the comment on Youtube – thank you! Were you still missing BDSM in the V2 version, where the letters are red and I managed to slow it down a bit?
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I just watched V2, and liked it better. Great job!
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Thank you!
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Your trailer turn out great! I really enjoyed it. The pulling out of hair paid off. You have some questions about something to do with it and I know of someone who might be able to answer them for you. You follow each other on twitter @AnaEliseMeyer. She just did two book trailers for herself and another author. Take a look at them and DM her. She is a local author around where I live and has offered to do a trailer for my book when I finish it. I’m sure she would answer your questions if she knows the answers. If you go to my twitter account her two trailers along with yours are posted at the top of my tweets so you can watch them if you like. Or go to her account. The two of you are very good at doing the trailers. Hope this helps you get your questions answered.Once again your hard work paid off. The next one will be easier!
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Thank you, Olivia! Just watched and retweeted hers. Good news is that I had another couple of hours playing with it and have learned heaps – so if you got to see the version with red BDSM letters, I managed to slow that sequence down. Unfortunately this is the kind of thing that’s impossible to do over email, unless she just fixes it for me, but then I don’t get to learn…and OMG, I love learning 🙂
Glad you liked it, thank you for letting me know. Hey, sold 3 books over the last couple of days, maybe it had something to do with that!!
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I’m sure it had something to do with it. Look at the size of the audience you reach on YouTube. I like to learn new things all the time, it drives my friends crazy. Hope your book sales keep going up and up from this, I’m sure they will. I’ll have the bookstores for you by the time you go on leave from work. Waiting on a few phone calls. Let us know if book sales keep going up!
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Wow, you’re a brave woman to tackle that! It looks really good.
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Thank you, Susan! It was terrifying 🙂
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This was a seriously funny post. Your voice is awesome! Love the trailer too.
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Thank you, Julia 🙂
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I continue to be impressed with how invested you and are and with the stuff you turn out. Awesome
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Thank you 🙂
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Congratulation! I’m tempted to give it a try, but don’t want to end up bald! I’ll wait and see if you think it impacts on sales, and then wait for a day (or 2 or 3) when I’m feeling calm enough to attempt it.
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I will include it as an option in my next giveaway, if you can wait that long…it would be impossible to say how many I sell due to it alone, but it seems that all my mad activity combined has raised average sales by about a book a day, compared to last month (I’d say about 1.5 per day vs 0.5 per day last month).
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Your tenacity is definitely an inspiration!
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Thank you, Sarah 🙂
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