Book Trailers: Book Trailers

A book trailer is like a movie trailer, except for a book! It's a short teaser that should raise interest and excitement in a title. It should "sell" the book to the viewer and make them want to read the book. What makes the book worth reading?

Step 1: Read a book. 

Step 2: Outline information about the book. 

Step 3: Make a VISUAL plan

How will you present your book? What images will you show? In what order? What words will you say or show on the screen?
You need a plan – Use a StoryBoard handout to sketch out your plan.

Step 4: Collect what you need – images, a song or two for your sound track, etc. Save these in one place.

Step 5: Edit it all together into a new video. 

ASSIGNMENT: Think about your summer reading. How would you entice someone to read that book using similar techniques?

1. Choose a book that you read this summer.
2. Write out a storyboard for a book trailer.
3. Create a 30 - 60 second book trailer. I recommend using Adobe Spark or iMovie.

You might want to include the following information

• Title of book
• Author of book
• Genre (be specific)
• Introduce main character(s) 
• What was your favorite part of the book, or a connection you personally made to the story or characters?
• Summarize main action of story (but NO SPOILERS!) e.g. explain the major conflict but don't give details about the resolution. 
• What was your favorite part of the book, or a connection you personally made to the story or characters?
• Descriptive adjectives to describe the book. Don't be vague: interesting, good, sad.
• What books are similar to this one (“If you liked x, then you’ll love this book!”)?
• What would be a good song, or good music to play with your book trailer?

Think about creating a tagline for your book:

• Armageddon (1998) "Earth. It was fun while it lasted."
• Dumb and Dumber (1994) "For Harry and Llyod, every day is a no-brainer."
• Finding Nemo (2003) "There are 3.7 trillion fish in the ocean. they're looking for one."
• I Am Legend (2007) "The last man on Earth is not alone."
• The Matrix (1999) "Reality is a thing of the past."
• Office Space (1999) "Work sucks."
• Alien vs. Predator (2004) "Whoever wins, we lose."

Don't forget to include your credits (at the end):

• Your name
• The year you made the trailer
• Portsmouth High School 
• Source(s) for the images and audio (name of the song, artist, etc)

April Van Buren's Book Trailers - for HS Students
LaFollett High School