Many authors are offering trailers of their books these days. It’s an entertaining way to introduce readers to your story in less than sixty seconds, using just a few key images, select quotations, and music. But how do you do it? There are a couple of ways to go about it. One, pay someone who knows what they’re doing. Two, take a risk and create your own. It’s actually not that difficult.

If you decide to make your own trailer, there’s a techie part and an artistic part. I read a couple of articles (here’s one) that explained how to create slides in Canva Pro, animate them, and add text. Creating the slides is the artistic part. Use your book blurb; you know that little piece you sweated over that went on the back cover? You have to search through tons of images to find the ones that grab you. I was stoked to find images that really portrayed my key characters. I honestly think the gods were with me that day.

Once I had the slides created, I dropped them into I-Movie. After that, all you need is a cinematic soundtrack and you’re off. Be sure to use royalty-free music and not just some song that you really like. Youtube has lots of royalty-free music that can be used commercially. This music is “Claim of Thrones.”

I penciled a storyboard and worked a few hours creating the slides. The hardest part was capturing the theme and key points that really described the story. After that the whole thing magically came together with the soundtrack. Here it is. What do you think?