How to Make a Book Trailer Using Google Vids

“What you show is more important than what you say.”
— David Ogilvy, How to Create Advertising That Sells

Why Make Short Book Trailers?

Short videos are an easy way to introduce your books to people who might never come across them otherwise. Platforms like Instagram Reels, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts can show your content to viewers beyond your existing followers, helping you reach new audiences without paying for advertising. 

Book trailers also give you a chance to showcase your illustrations, introduce a series, or offer a glimpse inside a book. And because the same video can be shared across several platforms, a little time spent creating one trailer can go a long way.

Where can you add book trailers?

Of course you can add them to the video platforms mentioned, but you can also embed these videos on your website, include them in blog posts, or add them to your book pages, giving them a purpose beyond social media. While views don't necessarily translate into book sales, they do create opportunities for readers, parents, teachers, and librarians to discover your work or learn more beyond the cover or the descriptions in the listings they see.

Here's a book trailer for our book Samhain: A Story About Halloween, that shows some of the illustrations and facts found in the book:

Why Use Google Vids for a Book Trailer?

I already have a Gmail account, I use Google Sites for our website (more on that in a future post) so I figured that easiest thing to do was to see if I could use their video option for these before joining another platform. 

I'm pretty happy with the videos have turned out as I've been able to create simple, free book trailers for Little Goodbyes Press. While none of these videos have gone viral (yet!), they've collectively received thousands of views across Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and our other places we've added them in only a few weeks. Not bad for a few illustrations, some music, and a little creativity! 

I am always looking for ways to promote our books and with simple options available, I love that you don't need expensive software or any video-editing experience to get started. 

Now that I've made a few, I thought why not share how I put together a short trailer for our Changing Traditions series.

Step 1: Choose Your Video Format

Google Vids lets you choose between landscape (16:9) and portrait (9:16). For this book trailer, we're selecting portrait (9:16) so the finished video works for Instagram Reels, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts.

Step 2: Choose Your Images

Select the images you want to include in your book trailer. These might be your book cover, interior illustrations, or stock images available in Google Vids.

For our Changing Traditions series trailer, we're using our logo along with the first four book covers to introduce the series.

Choose images that work well together and help tell the story you want your video to share.

Step 3: Add Your Images as New Scenes

Create a new scene for each image you want to include in your video. Add your first image, create another scene, and repeat until all your images are in place. 

You can either click on the insert option then new scene at the very bottom in the dropdown or I like just using the plus button on the bottom right of the screen. 

You can also add multiple images to a scene.

Step 4: Add Text

Add text to your video to highlight important information, such as your book title, author name, or website. Keep it short and easy to read so it doesn't distract from your images. For our Changing Traditions trailer, we're adding our website address to the final scene so viewers know where to find out more about the series.

Step 5: Adjust the Timing of Each Scene

The default time when adding a new scene to the video is five seconds, I like to adjust how long each scene appears on screen by changing its duration in the timeline. I try and give viewers enough time to see your images and read any text without making the video feel too slow.

You can change the length of time that each scene is on the screen by dragging the edge of the scene left to remove time or the right to expand the time. I like to play the video without any sound to make sure I can read the text on the screen as I go.

For our Changing Traditions trailer, we're allowing a few seconds for each book cover as there is text to read on the cover themselves, with slightly more time for the final scene displaying our website address.

Step 6: Add Transitions Between Scenes

Transitions help your video flow smoothly from one image to the next. Google Vids offers several transition effects, from simple fades to more noticeable movements. For our Changing Traditions trailer, we're using subtle transitions between the book covers to keep the focus on the illustrations.

Clicking on the little circles between the scenes brings up the options, the default is none.

Tip: Transitions overlap neighbouring scenes, which can shorten your video's total running time. Preview your video after adding transitions and adjust scene durations if needed to ensure that any important details or text is not rushed.

Step 7: Add Background Music

You can also add spoken narration to your book trailer if you'd like to introduce your book or tell viewers more about it. Google Vids offers options for recording your own voice or adding voiceovers. For this trailer, we're keeping things simple and using background music with images and text. 

If you are using music, try and choose music that suits the mood of your video. Google Vids includes a selection of audio tracks you can add without needing to record your own soundtrack. You can fade the music in and out and even use multiple music tracks but for a video this short, I'm using track.

Clicking on Insert and then Stock & Web will bring up the option for music.

Step 8: Download Your Video

Once you're happy with your book trailer, preview it from beginning to end to make sure the images, transitions, text, and music all work together. Download your finished video as an MP4 file and save it to your computer. MP4 is widely supported, making it easy to upload your trailer to YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, or your website or other platforms.

Final Video from YouTube

Hopefully this post shows that creating a book trailer doesn't have to be expensive or complicated. With a few images, some music, and a little experimentation, you can create a short video to share your books with new audiences. Try different transitions, experiment with timing, and see what works best for your story. You might be surprised how far a simple video can travel, I know I have been!

Want to see more examples of our book trailers and other short videos? You can find them all on our YouTube Channel and on our TikTok account, where we've been experimenting with different illustrations, music, and ways to introduce our books to new audiences. 

You can explore all of our current titles on our Books Page.

If you'd like to help share our works, visit our Libraries Page for circulation details and ISBNs.

Our books are available through major retailers including Chapters, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop, and Waterstones.