Does your book need a trailer?

Books get made into movies all the time.  So it stands to reason that there are now book trailers made for them.

I have seen a few here and there.  I usually find books I want to read by reading reviews or by picking them up in the library or bookstore and deciding if I want to read them or not.  I have not paid much attention to book trailers until just now.

I watched a few book trailers on YT yesterday to get some ideas to make my own.  I’ve done a lot of social media for my books, so why not a book trailer for my book that’s currently selling well and also one for which I gave a recent reading locally and sold all my copies.  The book I made the trailer for is “The Mailbox of the Kindred Spirit.”

I noticed many of the trailers I watched yesterday looked like movie trailers.  Some looked like a TV ad or commercial.

For my first one, I used a summary of the book, and pictures that I took from one of the very real locales in the book.  Add in some music and pretty fonts and colors and there you go,  I have a book trailer!

It’s only about a minute and a half.  It doesn’t have to be long.  I may try to do another trailer and/also enlist professional help when/if I do.

Once I finished it and posted it, I watched my own trailer several times and if I was a reader who enjoyed the genre my book is written in, I believe it would make me want to read the book.  It’s already inspired an idea of another place for me to sell them.

There is a place for book trailers.  So leap to the next level and get one going for your book or watch them from your favorite author or a new one and you may discover something fun to read!

Short vs Long Poems or The Long and Short of It!

Does length really matter?  Go ahead, laugh!  It’s okay.

I find at poetry readings and/or open mics, invariably someone will comment to me on the length of my poems.  Do they say anything about how long my 3 page poem is?  No!  But they do if it’s short.

Is there something wrong with short poems?  I used to almost always write very long poems.  Later on, maybe they were somewhere in-between long and short.  Recently, I started writing some shorter poems just because I wanted to see if I could.

Some of the most famous poems can be rather short in length.  I don’t think the length or lack of length of the poem is the most important part, but rather what you are saying in it and your use of spacing, line length, verses, form or not, all sort of things.

It’s what’s in the poem that counts!  Your poem will speak to you ... and then you decide while writing how the long and short of it!