A book trailer is a great way to make your book rise above the noise. Before a reader opens the cover, they need a reason to care, and this is where a book trailer comes in.
An effective book trailer doesn’t try to tell the whole story. It opens the door a crack and allows the reader a peek inside. Planting that irresistible question — “What happens next?” — can make all the difference in a crowded publishing world.
In this article, I’ll explain what makes a good book trailer and walk you through the process of making one step-by-step. I’ll use an example in each stage so you can see the principles in action, then look at common mistakes writers make, show you a before and after, and list some free and inexpensive tools you can use. Lastly, I’ll give you a Story Weapon with a test to see if your trailer is landing effectively.
A successful book trailer doesn’t summarize the story. It creates curiosity by using a dramatic question, resonant images, carefully chosen words, and music to make readers want more. Learn 5 steps on how to make a book trailer, avoid common mistakes, explore useful tools, and test whether your trailer makes people want to read the book.
What is a book trailer?
A book trailer is a promotional video usually made with stock footage or original art, background music, text, and sometimes actors to sell the mood, theme, and feeling of a book.
It’s different from a movie trailer, which uses actual footage from a completed film to show audiences a preview of scenes and dialogue. You probably don’t have a whole studio at your beck and call, so don’t put pressure on yourself to make it too grandiose.
Books give readers a chance to bring the world of a story to life in their imagination. A good book trailer doesn’t spoil that experience. It amplifies it.
While you’re looking for music and images for your trailer, consider the tone you want to convey to viewers. How do you want people to feel? Should they feel suspense? Hope? Surprise? Comfort? A sense of adventure?
Once you have a sense of tone, the next decisions become easier. Every image, piece of music, and line should work together to make that feeling stronger. The best book trailers build intrigue for what happens. Their purpose is to catch people’s attention and build excitement for your story.
Why so many book trailers miss the mark
The most common reason a book trailer fails is that the writer made it for themselves rather than for the reader.
They know the story. They know why it matters. They want to convey all of that, so they shove as much as they can in sixty seconds of text over dramatic music. By the end of the trailer, the viewer knows the protagonist, the conflict, the stakes, and even roughly how it resolves. They’ve been given the story in miniature, and . . . there’s nothing left to discover. The trailer replaced the book rather than inviting the reader into it.
Let’s consider a hypothetical example through each step of this process. Jane made exactly this mistake with her first book trailer.
She spent fourteen months writing a historical fiction novel set in 1920s Ireland. When the book was finished, she spent three weeks crafting a trailer. She found dramatic music, sourced beautiful footage of stone cottages and rain-soaked cobblestones, and wrote eloquent lines of text that introduced her protagonist, established the central conflict, and hinted at the resolution. The trailer looked professional. It told the story clearly. But . . .
. . . it killed reader curiosity completely. The book wasn’t selling, despite all her promotion efforts. Nobody needed to read the book. The trailer had already told them what happened.
Let’s consider how to rebuild that trailer from the beginning, one step at a time.
5 steps to make a book trailer
Step 1: Find the one question your book is built around
Before you open any software, or choose a single image or a note of music for your trailer, you need to identify the dramatic question at the heart of your story. This is what your story is really about underneath the plot.
For our writer’s historical fiction novel, the surface question is: Will Nora escape the marriage her family has arranged for her? The deeper question, the one the book is actually exploring, is: What does a woman owe the people who love her when loving them back would require her to disappear?
That second question is what the trailer should be built around. Point to the dilemma.
Write your dramatic question down before you do anything else. You can refer back to it every time you need to make a decision in the editing process.
Step 2: Find an image that carries the question
Now choose one image — something that helps the viewer feel the question.
For a novel about grief, that image might be an empty chair at a set table. For a thriller, it might be a door left slightly open in a long hallway. For a coming-of-age story, it might be a group of rowdy friends walking down a path.
Jane finds the perfect image: a woman’s hand resting on a windowsill, an engagement ring visible, and outside the window there’s a road disappearing into fog. The image does not explain anything. It raises a question the viewer cannot quite name. Who is she? What is she looking at? Why doesn’t she move?
The image supports the dramatic question and piques their curiosity.
For stock footage:
- Pexels and Pixabay both offer high-quality images and video clips at no cost. You’ll just need to check if they are marked as free to use or if there are licensing terms.
- Storyblocks offers a subscription model for higher-volume needs.
Step 3: Choose your words like a poet
Every word in a trailer costs something. Screen time, the viewer’s attention, the space that silence and image would otherwise fill. Use as few words as possible and make every one of them serve a purpose.
The test for any line of text in a trailer is this: Does this line create a question, or does it answer one? If it answers one, cut it. Your job here is to leave the viewer with more questions than they arrived with, not fewer.
Avoid vague summary language. Make it personal, centered on your characters. And don’t “explain” your story here. Implication is always more powerful than explanation in a short-form format like this.
A line of dialogue pulled directly from your book can do more work than three lines of description. It puts the viewer inside the voice of the story rather than outside it looking in.
For our example: “Your father has given his word. That’s the end of it.”
Step 4: Give your trailer a beginning, middle, and end
A trailer needs a beginning that creates a question, a middle that deepens it, and an end that leaves the viewer holding it without an answer.
For our writer’s novel, here’s the structure:
Beginning: A quote from the book on a dark screen: “Your father has given his word. That’s the end of it.”
The image of the hand on the windowsill appears. A line of text: “She knew what was expected of her.”
Middle: The lens pans over to the foggy road outside the window. A second line: “She had always done what they asked.” A pause. Then: “Until one morning, she didn’t.”
End: The book title and cover. A single line of text: “Available now.” Then darkness.
This would be perhaps fifteen to twenty seconds of footage. Four lines of text. A question to stick in the mind of your potential readers.
Notice what the trailer doesn’t include. It does not tell the viewer about who Nora is or what she does. It doesn’t state outright that there’s an arranged marriage or tell how the story ends. The viewers see one moment and are left needing to know what came before it and what comes after.
Step 5: Choose music to set the mood
Music is the emotional underpinning of everything else on screen. Choose it last, after you have your images and your text in place, and choose it by asking one question: Does this music cue the viewer to feel something about my story’s dramatic question?
In our example for Nora’s story, the music might be a single piano playing a slightly disjointed tune, with long pauses between notes. It doesn’t tell the viewer what to feel. It creates a space in which the feeling can arrive on its own.
While you’re choosing music, it’s important to carefully check for any copyright or specific licensing terms. It’s also sometimes required and generally appreciated to give credit to the artists. Even if it’s listed under Creative Commons (CC), avoid any tracks with a NonCommercial (NC) restriction. Here are some free and inexpensive music sources:
- Free Music Archive, Incompetech, Pixabay Music, and YouTube Audio Library all offer royalty-free track options at no cost.
- Epidemic Sound and Artlist offer subscriptions at annual rates that could be worth the investment if you plan to make multiple trailers.
Tools you can use to make a book trailer
You don’t need expensive professional video editing software to make a good book trailer. Here are some free and paid options:
- Canva (free option with a paid tier available) has a video editor built into the browser. It’s fairly intuitive, has a library of stock footage and music, and produces a clean result without requiring much technical knowledge.
- CapCut (free) is a mobile and desktop editor that handles text animation, music, and footage simply and well. It’s the tool most independent authors reach for first.
- iMovie (free on Mac) gives you control over pacing and transitions for videos. If you’re not familiar with Mac products, it might take some time to get familiar with the tools.
- DaVinci Resolve (free) is professional-grade software that is genuinely free. It has a learning curve but produces results indistinguishable from paid industry tools.
- Animoto (paid, with an option for a free trial) is built specifically for promotional videos and has templates designed for book trailers.
Common mistakes writers make with book trailers
Giving away the whole story: This is the most common and most damaging mistake. If the trailer reveals everything about the conflict and resolution, there’s nothing left to discover within the book itself. A trailer is not a summary. It’s an invitation.
Choosing beautiful images over resonant ones: A stunning nature scene that has nothing to do with the core of your story will not serve your trailer regardless of how good it looks. Every image should create a question.
Too much text: More than three or four lines of text in a book trailer is almost always too many. Each line needs to be doing significant work. If a line is explaining something and not implying, cut it.
Overpowering music: When the music is the most dramatic element in the trailer, your images and text lose their power. The music should support the feeling, not forcefully manufacture it.
Too long: Sixty seconds is the rough maximum range for successful book trailers. Much longer and you are competing with the book for the viewer’s attention rather than directing them toward it.
Before and after
Here is a before and after example for the opening sequence of our writer’s trailer:
Before (the original version):
“In 1920s Ireland, Nora Connelly faces an impossible choice. Forced into a marriage she never wanted, she must decide between the family she loves and the freedom she has always dreamed of. When a stranger comes to her village with a dangerous secret, everything Nora thought she knew is called into question.”
This version tells the viewer the protagonist’s full name, the setting, the conflict, the inciting incident, and the stakes. It answered every question before the viewer had a chance to ask one.
After (the rebuilt version):
“Your father has given his word. That’s the end of it.”
Pause.
“She knew what was expected of her.”
Pause.
“She had always done what they asked.”
Pause.
“Until one morning, she didn’t.”
The rebuilt version raises questions the viewer can’t answer yet. Who is she? What was expected of her? What did she do that morning? The viewer has to check out the book to find out more.
Your story weapon: Find the door
The trailer is finished. The music fades, the title appears, and the screen goes dark. Now ask yourself one simple question:
“Would I want to read this book?”
A useful test is to show your trailer to someone who hasn’t read your manuscript. Don’t explain anything first. Just play the trailer.
Then ask:
- What made you curious?
- What question do you have now?
- What do you think the book is about?
Listen carefully to their answers. Maybe something you thought was very important didn’t get their attention. Or maybe one sentence stayed in their mind. You know the story from the inside, but the reader sees it from the outside. This difference can teach you a lot.
If they’re interested, then the trailer is going in the right direction. If not, go back to the story. Find the moment that inspired you to write the book in the first place. Start from there again.
Give them one moment they can’t quite forget. One question they need answered. One image that makes them look twice. Then stop. You don’t need to show them what’s waiting on the other side. Let them take that step through the door themselves.
The most powerful invitation here is the one that leaves something unseen. When you’re considering how to make a book trailer, give the reader just enough of a taste to make them want more.
Creating an effective book trailer requires the same understanding of dramatic questions, reader curiosity, and storytelling principles that strengthen the book itself. To develop a deeper command of story structure, character, and narrative craft, join one of my next workshops: The 90-Day Novel, The 90-Day Memoir, Story Day.
