Animated Book Trailer: How to Make Readers Need Page One

You spent two years on the book. Now you have thirty seconds to make a stranger care. No pressure. The good news is that a book trailer is not a movie trailer. Nobody expects explosions. Readers expect a mood, a voice and a question they cannot stop thinking about, and animation is brilliant at all three, partly because drawn pictures leave room for the reader's own imagination, the way a book does.

What is an animated book trailer?

An animated book trailer is a short video, usually 30 to 60 seconds, that uses drawn pictures, words, music and often a voice to make people want to read a book. It works like a film trailer, but it sells a feeling and a question rather than action scenes. Authors share it on social feeds, their website, newsletters and at events.

Animation fits books especially well. It avoids the awkward look of actors playing your characters, it matches picture books and fantasy naturally, and it lets readers keep their own mental image of the heroine.

What should a book trailer include?

Five beats: a hook, the world, the trouble, the question, and the book itself. That order works for nearly every genre. Keep each beat to one or two short lines. The last beat must show the cover, the title, your name and when or where to get it, and hold them long enough to read.

That example is for a made-up mystery called The Last Light. Notice what it skips: the villain's name, the subplot with the brother, the twist in chapter 19. All good things. None of them trailer things.

Need a 15-second version for a phone feed? Keep only beats 1, 4 and 5: "Every lighthouse on the coast went dark the same night. Who turned off the lights? The Last Light. Out in May." Three lines, one shiver, one cover.

How long should a book trailer be?

30 to 60 seconds for most uses, and 15 to 30 seconds for phone feeds. Shorter is almost always better: viewers decide within the first few seconds whether to keep watching. A long trailer on your website can be fine, but make a short cut too. One tight trailer beats one long one every time.

A single film can be cut into a long, a short and a snippet; see cutting one film to several lengths. For writing the 30-second version specifically, how to write a script for a 30 second animation has a word-count table.

Which music and mood fits your genre?

Match the mood the reader will feel on page one, not on the last page. A cozy mystery wants plucky strings and a wink. A thriller wants a low pulse and silence before the title. Here are starting points, not laws.

• Thriller and crime Low pulse, sparse sound, one sharp sound effect before the title. Dark colors, lots of shadow.
• Romance Warm, light music, soft colors, and a line with a smile in it. Let the two characters almost touch.
• Fantasy Wide landscapes, a slow reveal of the world, music that grows. Show one magical object up close.
• Picture books Bright, bouncy, and read aloud by the author. Kids and parents both watch; make both laugh once.
• Memoir and nonfiction Calm and honest. One real detail beats three big claims. Your own voice helps.
• Poetry collections Animate one short poem instead of describing the book. See how to animate a poem.

Making a book trailer in five steps

1. Step 1

   Find the question. What does a reader wonder after chapter one? That question is your trailer.

2. Step 2

   Write five short lines. Hook, world, trouble, question, book. Aim for about 60 to 70 spoken words for 30 seconds.

3. Step 3

   Choose the mood. One word: eerie, cozy, sweeping, funny. Tell whoever makes the film that word first.

4. Step 4

   End on the cover. Title, name, date or "Out now." Hold it for at least three seconds.

5. Step 5

   Make three shapes. Tall for phone feeds, square for posts, wide for your website and events. See which format goes where.

Do book trailers actually sell books?

Honestly, nobody can promise a trailer sells a set number of copies. What a good trailer does reliably is give you something worth posting, something your readers can share, and a clear way to explain the book's mood in seconds. Think of it as your book's handshake. It will not close the deal alone, but a bad one can lose it.

Sell the question. The book sells the answer.

The quick way: a book trailer in Nine

Write your five lines, choose A script in Nine, and paste them with a blank line between each. Every paragraph becomes a scene, in your order, with your words. You can upload the cover on any paid plan, or record yourself reading the hook with A voice recording. You watch while the crew draws the scenes and adds a voice, music and sound effects, and the crew checks it before you see it. Then say "darker," "slower before the title" or "bigger cover," and get a new version.

Every film comes wide, tall and square as a video file; you post it yourself. The Film plan is $29 a month for 20-second trailers, perfect for phone feeds; Film + Transparent makes 30 seconds. See plans or read about films for a launch or an invitation, handy for your book party.