Your Book Trailer's Opening Scene - Which Way To Go

OFFICIAL TITANIC POSTER

Outline Your Book Trailer with this Hollywood Trick:

Once upon a time, I was an aspiring screenwriter. (still am, but who cares) In fact, screenwriting was how I got started writing novels, so I've learned a trick or two from the pros on how to pitch your screenplay to Hollywood.

Novelists can use this same technique to fine-tune their book trailers.

Traditionally, screenwriters pitch a logline of their script, which is a brief sentence or two, or a short paragraph outline for the movie.

Titanic Logline:
A seventeen-year-old aristocrat, expecting to be married to a rich claimant by her mother, falls in love with a kind but poor artist aboard the luxurious, ill-fated R.M.S. Titanic.

This logline is all about the love story and along with  loglines, screenwriters also mock-up sample posters. The reasoning is, if you can't envision the poster, the movie won't work.

Think about this idea. A logline and a poster do one very important thing for your story: they help you define the core story question. In other words, Titanic is really about a love story between an aristocrat and a poor, starving artist. On a broader scale, it's also about social classes and its disparities when it comes to true love. But that only covers the genre: A love story.

You can write hundreds of love stories, but what sets them apart? It's always, boy meets girl, girl hates boy, and in the end, they fall in love and live happily ever after. Right, but what makes these stories unique? That's where your story question, the driving force behind your story, comes into play. In Titanic, the main conflict is all about The Heart of the Ocean jewel, a rare, blue diamond, and its whereabouts. Who owns it? Was it stolen, or is it lost on the bottom of the ocean floor?

But, the plot thickens, and that leads to a love affair, a feud for the lost diamond, and then a sinking ship, among several other subplots thrown in for good measure. Wow, what a powder keg this story sits on!  So how do you sort it all out and what opening do you choose for your trailer?

Let's see, James Cameron chose to frame this story within the context of this core story question. What happened to the Heart of the Ocean diamond? It's a fictitious tale, book-ended to frame the true history of the Titanic's demise. Why? Because without this "literary" device, the real story of Titanic is nothing more than a documentary. And that's not as exciting as a 3 hour movie with a complex structure and a myriad of intriguing subplots.

The poster, however, mentions nothing about the diamond. The poster focuses entirely on their love affair. Notice the imagery. A young couple in love, and a ship seemingly splitting them apart. Then the tag line: Nothing on earth could come between them. Really?  Not quite, because that's exactly what happens. That tagline does a tremendous job launching the main theme of the story: True love conquers all. That's really what this Titanic movie is all about. Everything else is context, subtext, and icing on the proverbial cake. And what a multi-layered cake it is.

So how does all this relate to your book trailer? Simple, you need a hook to launch your book trailer, a logline, of sorts, that says: here's the essence of this book. This is what this book is really all about.  And you need to show it with vibrant images, sound, and voiceovers if necessary. You need to pose a story question that sets the tone for the book and the trailer, from frame one. Think theme and think genre.

The official Titanic movie trailer runs long at 4:09 minutes. That's about twice the length of most trailers, however, this is a long movie with a rather complex plotline, but those digital shots of the Titanic are breathtaking and interesting to watch, so it all holds up.

Look at this way, the marketing folks chose to saturate their marketing with different points of view. Very smart because, why would you want to repeat the same message in the poster and in the movie trailer? That's redundant and a waste of marketing dollars. Instead, they chose to angle the poster as a love story, (after all, you must keep its message simple) and showcase the trailer with a historical POV, focusing on the rare diamond, the feud over its disappearance, and the race against time to save themselves aboard a sinking ship. Hence, a four minute trailer.

Whew! This is exhausting just writing about it. It's no wonder the budget for Titanic was about 200 million. Ridiculous, but most likely, necessary.

The bottom line here is that when you outline your book trailer, think about the story theme and the story genre. Because that's where most of the images and music comes from. Musical scores are all about genre. Images are also about genre, but they can be specific to scenes too, so you have to decide early which way to go. What's your focus? Is it theme, or is it a specific scene in the book? A scene that covers the main theme, or the opening scene, or hook. Your choice.

Once you pinpoint your short synopsis (logline) and envision a (movie) book poster for your book, you're on your way to finding the best way (which scene or images to use) to open your book trailer. Starting a trailer is a lot like staring at a blank canvas, or an empty screen with a blinking cursor. Where do you begin? What launches the story? What are the circumstances that set it off?

What will engage the viewer and hold their interest for the next 90 seconds or several minutes? And how will those images, those questions, inspire viewers to keep searching for more answers?
  

Realize this:

 Your book trailer is an open-ended question, a curiosity that leads viewers 
on a quest for final answers, and consequently, closure.

Without this mindset, all your efforts, all your hard work will lead to nothing more than a slideshow of something that vaguely resembles your story. Apply these principles and techniques to your writing, to all your marketing, and to your book trailers, and see the amazing difference it can make in how readers perceive your book, its story, and ultimately, your book sales.

BOOK TANGO - Dreams of Happy Endings - Are You Ready To Take The Plunge?

Over the summer, I'd been working on a 5 book series titled, Layers of Veronica for Emilia Rutigliano and came up with this video for her 4th book, GAJAH.

I love the music she chose, and looking back, I would have liked to show more Tango scenes with flashier image cuts, but either way, I think we pulled off an interesting video that showcases elements of her story in a memorable way that appeals to readers. And once you get readers hooked on a video, you're much closer to a sale.

The trick is to hint, but not to give away the most important parts of your story. That's where the tease comes in and where the sale really begins. And sales is what it's all about for the most part. Because aside from telling part of a story, good book videos also enhance an author's platform, can lead to more exposure, and boost credibility. All that in about 90 seconds.

Book videos, when done right, offer plenty of advantages to authors, but the video's main goal of course, is to sell your book, although, that's something that no one has complete control over. Many obstacles inhibit sales and so the objective of the video is to flick on as many green lights as possible and eliminate all the red lights along the way.

Dreams are inspiring, but you have to take action too!

I like this analogy because a sale that comes full-circle begins with a series of green lights, starting with reader's initial contact with your book, right down to when they click the Buy Now button and become a bona-fide customer, no red lights that stop a sale dead in its tracks. Red lights include, poor cover design, price points that are too high or too low, too many bad reviews, vague opening chapter, boring lead character, etc.

All this, providing that quick shipping and customer satisfaction with the story is also in place. Now those are two factors that are certainly beyond your control, although some book reviews could make mention of them.

And you thought a sale was all good news, but not all sales have happy endings. Although, most sales are final and end happily, you must do everything within your power up front to make sure customers are happy with their purchase so they can purchase again, recommend your book, or even better, look forward to your next book.

So you see, the sales cycle is never-ending. It's like that commercial, "Put good in, get good out." Then again, the "good" you put in is subjective, so you never really know what to expect.

So, is there a silver lining to anything about writing and selling books?

Take The Plunge!

 Yes and Maybe. Everything depends on everything else. It's a Tango, after all. A crap shoot. What can you expect? No one really knows. Isn't that what Hollywood executives say about making movies?

Which is why Hollywood relies on bestselling books for the most part. They don't take any chances on their 50 to 100 million dollar film investments and scout for bestselling books that gauge mass appeal and predict ticket sales.

That's great motivation for novelists. Write a bestselling book, and reap the rewards of hopefully optioning your story for a movie script, which actually gets made, which in turn will sell even more books.

Dream on, folks. Really, dream on, because it's happened to many authors, and it certainly can happen to you.