Book Trailers, Animations, and Cat Scully

Because we are talking about videos and trailers in book marketing this week, here, again, is my trailer for Jovienne, featuring music from the original score I composed...


Yes, that's my music. I created a new arrangement of the song Immanence  just for the trailer, which I also made. This was my first ever attempt at a trailer.

My research showed 45 - 75 seconds was prime. I shot for that, but the feedback I recieved forced me to push it a little longer. I would like to think that the music was interesting enough that it maintained viewers for the full play. Personally, I don't think there's anything WRONG with it, but I know it could also be better because I believe that anyone's first attempt at anything can be improved upon. The constraints of a trailer include not only the skill and experience of the creator, but the budget. I purchased images of San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge and Coit Tower, as well as a demonic eyes image. The woman representing Jovienne is a friend, and her images, taken by Candylust, were used with permission.  ALL of the images I tweaked/altered in Photoshop. (As a dormer graphic artist, I do have some skills in that area.)

This was 1.) a great means to enable people to quickly know something about the story, and 2.) give them a taste of the music I've composed for it. For me, this was a triple win... 3.) I had fun and learned stuff creating it.

You can buy a digital copy of the CD for $5.99  HERE  or you can buy a hard copy CD from me either at a convention, or you can use the link on my website HERE.

Now, the important question: Has this generated sales?

Answer: I don't know.

I can tell you, though, that I plan to do more trailers for my books and music because it was fun, I love being creative, and it can't hurt.

That said, I recently saw a "book animation" for another friend's book, Christopher Golden's Ararat.
I was struck by it. I'm currently reading that book and this animation captured the essence of the tale. The premise of it is straightforward and simple (though I doubt the work involved with it was) and as a viewer, I came away with a sense of quiet menace, which pairs perfectly (IMO) for the story.

When I researched it to link it here for y'all, I realized it was done by Catherine Scully, who I met at DragonCon last year and is an awesome woman. You can see here portfolio, LINK HERE. (*And you can see that Ararat animation HERE *scroll to the bottom*) She does so much more than trailers and animations--she's an author too!!!

Her bio:

Cat Scully is an illustrator and graphic designer who enjoys lending her experience to help authors as they develop their personal branding platforms. She's worked for nearly a decade as a print, web, and motion designer for clients like: Cartoon Network, Boomerang, CARE, AT&T, Comedy Central, Cosmo, NBC, ABC, and Marvel/Paramount. She assists authors and publishers by creating illustrated world maps, character trading cards, posters prints, banner stands, website designs, author logos, social media ads, and animated book covers. She currently works with River City Writers, Christopher Golden and James A. Moore, designing their social media ads, web assets, user experience, and assists with print design and production. In addition to being a designer, Cat Scully is a writer herself, and her work is represented by Miriam Kriss of Irene Goodman Literary. 

CHECK HER OUT!!!!

Gettin' Flashy: Can Videos Sell More Books?

Ah, advertising. Trying to grab eyeballs. Create an impulse. Make a sale.

Book trailers. 30-sec video clips. GIFs. Animated ads. Do they sell more books than a static, flat ad? Are they worth the money? The time to create?

Guys, hehehe, ~slaps knee~, let's have a reality check. If sales and marketing divisions knew without a doubt what kind of advertising would guarantee a sale, there'd be a revolution in the industry. 85% of S&M (yes, yes, snigger if you want) is spaghetti against the wall. When an ad has a conversion rate of greater than 10%, it's considered a rousing success. A good campaign is somewhere around 5%, the average is 2%.

The holy grail of advertising is a viral campaign in which the company doesn't have to do much. A Taste Maker has fallen in love with the product and given it legs. If they can't get a Taste Maker, get a teenager (lookin' at you, Fidget Spinners). They're the second most influential group. Women are the group with the greatest purchasing power. You place your ads where they'll be seen by influencers and purchasers. 'Dems da broad strokes of S&M that haven't changed in decades.

So, what's that have to do with trailers, clips, and GIFs?

Disclaimer: I don't work for a publisher or an advertising agency. I do not work for an ad farm or a research firm. I do not have actual stats on campaigns. I do have amazing Google-fu and experience trying to get people to buy stuff they don't know they need.

Let's start with book trailers. You don't make them for the audience you wish you had. They're not a sales tool. You make them as a reward for the readers you already have. At best, they're a retention tool. Usually, book trailers are done because the author simply likes having them.

But what if I'm advertising on YouTube and I want a pre-roll or in-play video ad? Then you probably are spending too much on your advertising budget. ~cough~ In all seriousness though, you have 10-seconds to grab the attention of your viewer, by 15-seconds you've lost 2/3rds of them. 30-seconds is your max time allowed for the ad. My gut says the ROI isn't there for an author. You're selling a book, not a Marvel movie. YouTube isn't where you'll find your audience. If you're committed to a video longer than 60 seconds, you're likely better served by having your own channel and directing existing readers there--again, for the fun of it, not the sale.

Viral Video Clips (15-30 seconds):  Here's the thing, videos take time to render on the page. On mobile apps, they can be turned off, aka, never seen. They're usually prioritized to render last. By then, the consumer's already clicked away or they're reading the content of the page and your video will piss them off when it finally plays because it's now a distraction and it's probably stolen focus (e.g. claimed the cursor's control from scroll bar).

However, if you have fans who send clips to you of your book in the wild, of their reviews, of cosplaying your characters, etc., my friends, that is AWESOME. Promote that stuff on your website (after getting the reader's permission).  Do not make them into ads.

Flash(y) Ads/HTML5 Animated/Rich Media: When the tech behind Flash ads was new to market, it was something hungry advertisers and hungrier ad sales teams pushed. To the point that consumers are now as blind to them as static ads. If you have your heart set on a rich media ad and some cash to burn, limit the play to 6 seconds. More than 9 seconds and your Click-Through-Rate (CTR) tanks. 6 is the sweet spot.

6-second ads, aren't those Vine video clips? Folks, Twitter killed Vine. It didn't replace it as the best tech, the company Twitter bought Vine then killed it. Pretty much tells you everything you need to know. Yes, there are other providers out there. Yes, of course, the tech is still used. If it could have been successfully monetized, it wouldn't have slunk off to the shadows.

GIFs: As a file format for advertising, GIFs aren't typically supported. It's most likely you're thinking of using gifs on your website or on your social media accounts. On sites that support the playback, it's not the time that's limited, it's the file size. It's technically possible to make a 3-min gif. Use GIFs as you would any status update on your social media --to engage with your followers. If you deploy these as cheap/free sales opportunities, you might as well be screaming BUY MY BOOK at your audience. That's how you lose followers.

There is nothing wrong with static ads. Vendors have all kinds of limitations on text versus image and what kinds of images are not acceptable, but there is an industry standard for visual and file size. One ad can go in a lot of places and across a lot of platforms. For now, static ads are still the best bang for your buck.

A better option for your time with minimal money: Build your newsletter subscriber list. Send free short stories to your subscribers quarterly.

The best option for your time and money: Write the Next Book.

Um. YEah

Everything that Jeffe said, except about awards.

I have never tried a video. I just spam the internet from time to time with links.

Have a great week,

James A. Moore

Because we all like the occasional discount: ALIEN: SEA OF SORROWS is available on the Kindle right now for $1.99

PR you can get the entire ALIEN: TRILOGY by Tim Lebbon, Christopher Golden and yours truly for @5.97

Each story is a standalone but it's a pretty darned cool price and oif you read them all, there are connections and threads of other things throughout.

Book Trailers and Animated Ads - Do They Work?

Lonen's War is on sale for .99₵! If you haven't read it - or if you've been bugging your friends to give it a try ;-) - this is the perfect time to grab a copy.

I'm doing this in part to celebrate my good news: THE PAGES OF THE MIND and THE EDGE OF THE BLADE are both finalists in the fantasy category of the Fantasy, Futuristic, and Paranormal (FFP) PRISM Award! It's always a thrill to be a finalist, but with two books in there, I have my fingers crossed that maybe I'll get one of these:

Only with, yanno, MY name and book on it! A girl can dream.

Marketing: Book Trailers, Vine Vids, and Gifs: Can/Would/Could Animated Ads Work For You?

So... I'm just so not a marketing person. I could probably get good at it if I could get over the idea that a lot of it is manipulation. I have issues with manipulative behavior of all types, and I pretty much loathe advertising tricksiness. I learned a long time ago that the purpose of most advertising is to convince us we have a problem, so they can then sell us the solution. Thus the whole "do you have ring around the collar?" sort of commercial, where you come away wondering, "do I???" And they want you to buy the stuff to make it disappear. 

Marketers like to created fear and worry, so that we purchase their product to make it go away. This fear and worry we didn't have until they created it.

There's this whole divide between showing people that something is available - like, just for example - me leading this post off with pimping that .99₵ sale. I need to mention it, as there's no point in having a sale if I don't tell anyone about it. But I'm not going to be one of those who tries to create fear - SALE ENDS SOON, BUY IT NOW OR YOU'LL MISS OUT! - or worry, by implying that you're the only one who hasn't read it or by telling you about the bills I need to pay. Nor do I want to bombard people.

To me, the flashy, blinky stuff falls in the category of bombardment. Animation catches the eye, so advertisers like it. In the Big Competition for Attention, video stuff does well. 

I like doing Facebook Live stuff, because it's fun and I feel genuine just talking about random stuff. Gifs can be amusing and I use them sometimes, but not for marketing. Book trailers... I know Veronica Scott loves them and she'll almost certainly talk about why. I don't care for them myself. I've never bought a book from a book trailer. They can be fun treats for fans, but otherwise ... meh.

But, you know, I don't much care for video anything. I get annoyed every time I click on a news article link and it turns out to be a video I have to watch instead of something I can read.

I dunno - as readers, are there animated ads you like? 

Could be I'm just old and cranky. ;-)

The Ego and Other Tales

When I saw our topic for this week - how to keep the ego in check - the first thing that came to my mind was the Id Monster from "Forbidden Planet." Now the Id works with the Ego and the Superego according to Freud. Close enough for me!

When you first suspect your ego might be getting a bit oversize...

When you know you're in Condition Red...

Examine the situation...is it you? Was it the Krell?

Friends and colleagues will help you keep it real....

A Happy Ever After ending will ensue....

And the Universe will be in good balance again.

(See also the previous posts this week wherein my fellow SFF7 members offered good advice as always!)

Ego Calling, Line Two

Once upon a time, a book sold. It was the author's first. The reviews were good, but then, the book was declared a finalist in two categories in a nationally recognized contest. That's when things got weird.

The author's agent started saying things like, "You're brilliant."
Readers and other writers started treating the writer as if she were suddenly an expert in the art of peering into the future of publishing. There were interviews and generally just attention that this writer simply wasn't accustomed to. Then the editor echoed the agent's words. "You're brilliant."

Terror sent the author racing to the hotel room and the phone for a call to Mom - to someone who could speak sense and point out that the writer hadn't changed. She was still herself. The flattering attention, while startling, was part and parcel of the profession. So it was up to the author to find her ground before her ego started feeding off of the attention like some kind of emotional vampire. The author need not have worried. The attention didn't last. It couldn't.

But the author did come up with some resolutions to keep the ego on an ultra short leash, should it ever again be needed:

1. Clean the cat boxes. Nothing keeps you from imagining you're hot shit than scooping some other critter's poop. If there are no pets, do the dishes. Scrub your toilet. Anything less than glamourous that reminds you that you aren't exempt from being human.
2. Ground. You keep your feet on the ground by returning to the places where you're rooted - the places where you are most purely you. For some that's within the family. For others, it's a retreat in the woods/desert/mountains/by the sea. It can also be that group of friends who laugh and gently puncture you when ego starts inflating.
3. Ask the agents/editors/whoever to rephrase the praise. No saying 'you're brilliant.' Want to say 'brilliant?' Fine. Say the writing is brilliant. It's a fine line, but it's praise for the work, not for the person.
4. Work. Keep your eyes on the next story. And the next. And instruct the crit group(s) or beta readers to slap the crap out of you should you imagine you're too important to be edited.
5. Be of service. This is especially useful at conferences when the spotlight might feel a little unrelenting. Go cart boxes for other authors. Volunteer to help set up a room or clean up a room. Stuff reader bags. Whatever the conference needs done. It helps to be reminded that this is for the readers. Not for the author.

Not that you can't have some fun. Drinks in the bar are absolutely within reason. Just make sure that if other people are buying you drinks that you buy for someone else. Spread the good will.

Ego Check

The topic this week from the SFF Seven is "How do you keep your ego in check?"

And I'm just thinking-- pretty much by being a midlist fantasy writer.  Frankly, I can't imagine anyone getting too big of a head doing this work.  

More to the point, you have to get in the absolute top levels of this industry to even be in danger of getting a big head.  Unless you were already the type of person for whom any level of success would inflate your ego.  To an extent, that's some Dunning-Kruger territory.  

Look, I don't want to give the sense that I'm not thrilled, absolutely thrilled that this is my life, and that I'm incredibly fortunate that my hard work has paid off as well as it has, that I get to tell the story of Maradaine and all the champions within that magical city.  That I get to keep telling it.  It's amazing.

But aside from a few brief moments, rarely does anything in this business actually charge your ego up.  It's far more of a Keep Your Chin Up So They Don't Grind You Down sort of industry.

I still love it, though.  I love the work.  Time to get back to it.   

How Do I Keep Humble?

Wrapped in foil, not clingwrap. It's all about reheating.  Wut? I'm talking about...

Pie. 

Literal  Pie.

Humble Pie, ladies and gents, can be a wonderful thing. Yes, it's essentially leftovers wrapped in dough. The term is derived from the French word for scraps, "nomble," which suffered Misheard Lyrics Syndrome and became " 'omble," which got prettied up to be "humble." Hard "h."

Traditionally, Humble Pie is a savory, meaty pie. Give the beef, lamb, or duck versions a try. They can be really good depending on who's in the kitchen and what veggies and fruit are thrown into the mix. Word to the wise, don't ask what cuts of meat are in the pie. It's usually made from the viscera. I know, anything involving the word "viscera" brings to mind that scene from Braveheart. ~crosses legs~  Focus on the awesome aroma of the pie.

My favorite is the Humble Fruit Pie. I'll bust out a flaky crust (store-bought, 'cause I'm lazy) and fill that sucker with fruit that might be a bit damaged, bruised, mutated, or nearing its end-date (food that embodies your emo is awesome, right?) Emo fruit is often available at a discount at your local farmer's market if you ask the vendor if he has baking fruit. They don't tend to put the less-than-pretties on display, but they do tend to bring 'em. A sale is a sale. What's the difference between Humble Fruit Pie and Regular Fruit Pie? No idea. Possibly the tears you shed while exulting in its glory?

Want to try your hand at Humble Pie?  Here's King Arthur's Flour recipe: http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/humble-pie-recipe, see if your pie comes out as pretty as their picture.