How to Make a Book Trailer with Examples & Free Templates

A book trailer is a great promotional tool for authors looking to get the word out about their books! With Animoto’s free online book trailer maker, you can easily promote your book on social media, your website, your Amazon author page, and beyond.

In this guide, we’ll show you how to make a book trailer in just a few minutes using our free book trailer template. We’ll use photos and video clips you have on hand, or can easily shoot yourself. So grab your book and let’s dive in!

How to make a book trailer

Ready to get started? We’ll show you how to make a book trailer like the example above using your photos, illustrations, and stock imagery to set the scene. We’ll start with planning, including gathering assets, and then show you how to create your video using Animoto.

Coming up with the story for your book trailer

If you’re creating a book trailer for a book you’ve written, you already know how to tell a great story! So before you get started making your video, take some time to jot down notes about the story you want to tell in your book trailer.

You’ll want to explain what your book is about in a compelling way. Don’t give away too much—share just enough to entice viewers. Then, let them know where they can purchase, order, or download your full book.

Author and life coach Mary Schiller shared some tips with us:

• Have a beginning, middle, and end. Mary says, "Just like a movie trailer, a book trailer needs a story." Set the stage and introduce characters, introduce a twist, and then let people know where they can buy your book.
• Be concise. Keep your book trailer short to grab and hold viewers’ attention. We recommend keeping your trailer under a minute. If you’re writing a script, cut out everything except what’s most important to tell your story.
• Match the tone of your book. The tone of your book trailer should reflect that of your book. Take a what-you-see-is-what-you-get approach. People shouldn’t feel a disconnect between your book and the materials you’re using to promote it.

Gathering assets for your book trailer

Once you know what story you’d like to tell, it’s time to gather photos and video clips to tell your story. Our Torn Pages Book Trailer template uses stock images and videos. Our other book trailer video template includes stock imagery as well as photos of the book and author. You can easily take a similar approach by scanning pages from your book or using your phone or camera to shoot video clips.

If you don’t have any photos or video clips to use, or your book doesn’t have pictures, that’s ok. You can create a book trailer using stock images and video clips too. Animoto offers a stock library of over 1 million photos and video clips from Getty Images.

Find "Stock" by opening the Media Library tray to the right of your video builder screen. Search for terms related to your book and the story you want to tell in your trailer. Check out tips for getting the most out of our stock library.

How to make a book trailer (with examples!)

Step 1: Log into Animoto and select a template

First you’ll need to log into your Animoto account. If you don’t have one yet, click here to use Animoto’s book trailer maker for free!

Once you’re in, you’ll notice that you can choose a template or start from scratch. For this example, we’ll be using our Book Trailer template.

This template starts out in landscape mode. Once you create the first version, Animoto makes it easy to convert to any other ratio.

If you’re creating a book trailer for the social media feed, we recommend going square. If you’ll be posting your video on YouTube or embedding it on your website, we recommend landscape. Choose vertical if you're sharing on Stories, Reels, or TikTok.

Step 2: Upload your assets or search for stock

Next, upload all of the photos and video clips you gathered to tell your story. Or, search for stock imagery related to your book. All of this can be done in the Media Library tray while you're working on your video. You can upload files under the “Project” tab or search for stock under the "Stock" tab.

Step 3: Drag and drop photos in order

Drag and drop your photos and video clips from the Media Library tray directly into your project in the order you’d like them to appear in your video.

Try different layouts to make your media stand out.

Step 4: Add text to tell your story

The most important part of your book trailer is the story! Click on the "T" text icon to add text to your video. You can add a title and subtitle to each block and adjust the size and colors. Or, double click a text box to alter the text. You can also change the font, size, color, and position of your text easily.

Introduce your main character, major plot points, and a cliffhanger. You can also copy and paste reviews into your book trailer to add credibility and entice new readers.

Step 5: Adjust the look and feel to match your story

Next, you can make adjustments to the way your video looks in design settings. You can change the theme or fully customize font, text colors, background colors, text styles, video styles and more. You can even add your brand watermark!

Step 6: Choose music

Once you’ve finished telling your story, the last step is to select your music. Professional users can add up to eight music tracks to capture each mood of your story's arc. The Animoto music library has a variety of mood filters, which can be useful for finding the right song for each part of your book trailer.

Step 7: Finalize and share your book trailer

Once your music is selected, click Export in the upper right-hand corner to see how it looks. If you’re happy with it, click Download to create a video file, Share to upload directly to social media, or Copy Link to share through email, on your website, to your publisher, or anywhere else!

And there you have it! Ready to make your own book trailer video? Click the button below to get started. Happy video making!