GUEST POST BY AUTHOR BENJAMIN ELLEFSON
Benjamin Ellefson is an award-winning, middle grade author who writes modern fairy tales that are fun for kids and thought provoking for adults. To learn more about The Land without Color or the upcoming Lexi Vega and the Starlight Stone, visit Benjamin at his website.
I recently finished working with Film 14 on the trailer for my middle grade, fantasy adventure The Land without Color. It was an amazing experience from start to finish and I am so pleased with the final product.
DISCOVERING FILM 14
As an independent author, I am always looking for ways to bring my books out of the darkness of obscurity and into the light visible by book buyers. Each year, this seems like an increasing challenge as the indie book market matures and the quality of the competition rises.
I’ve used BookBub and other similar services to expose my books to avid readers and gets some reviews. I’ve become adept at creating ads on Amazon and Facebook to specifically target readers in my niche. I’ve gotten to know the indie book award circuit, winning a handful of awards. I’ve poured hours into developing a killer website that helps me stand above the crowd. I’ve even created a line of T-shirts and other merchandise themed after my books for both guerrilla marketing and a little extra income.
The one marketing avenue I hadn’t done yet was a book trailer. I had seen a small handful of book trailers on the websites of other authors or social media. But they were merely slideshows of text with some music. It seemed like something that I could make myself, but they all looked cheap. I didn’t yet see the value in them.
That is until I watched a series of videos by indie author and YouTuber Mandi Lynn. That is when I discovered Film 14, a video production company that specializes in making book trailers for authors.
My mind exploded with excitement at all of the possibilities of having a Hollywood quality book trailer to instantly capture the attention of potential readers of my books. I quickly went down a rabbit hole watching all of their portfolio of trailers and researching the options. Some of their trailers even have celebrities acting or doing the voice over. I fell in love instantly and knew that I had to hire them to create a book trailer for my books.
CONNECTING WITH FILM 14
I reached out to them and was thrilled when they immediately replied to my message. We quickly began a dialog. Like many newbies to book trailers, I had a ton of questions. I was always impressed by their response. Each time I emailed them, they responded within the hour with a concise answer that explained the next few questions I hadn’t even thought of yet. I could quickly tell that they were experienced filmmakers who knew how to make a quality product on my budget.
I was very pleased to discover how customer oriented they were. As the customer, I got full decision-making process over the entire process. Plus, I had their experience hand to guide in the understanding the ins and outs of filmmaking that were new to me.
My first decision that I needed to make was determining the type of book trailer that I wanted setting my budget. Since my series of books are middle grade fantasy, my first inclination was to do something animated. I figured that incorporating talking animals, goblins, and a two-headed dragon would cost a fortune with live action.
But as I reviewed the different trailers, I was amazed at how much they could do. When I watched the trailer they did for The Curse of the Were Penguin, I was blown away at the special effects that they could do. So I was really excited about the possibilities.
Originally, I was planning on doing three trailers, one for each book the series. I had saved up enough to make a top of the line animated trailer for each. But I really did fall in love with the live action work that Film 14 did and was very excited about the impact that a killer live action trailer could have. So I decided to take that entire budget and use it for a spectacular trailer for the first book in the series.
WORKING WITH FILM 14
Once I made that decision, I reviewed and signed the contact to get going. I paid 50% up front to get them started, with the remaining 50% due upon completion. The first phase was the treatment. I sent them a PDF of my book, the cover, and a brief synopsis for them to get started. They said they would get back to me in two weeks, but I was pleasantly surprised when they came up with their idea in only one week.
Reading their treatment of the trailer was so exciting. A treatment is like an outline of the script, highlighting the key points and ideas, without all of the hard details. I was impressed with their ability to pull out the key elements from my book and present it in a compelling way.
The next step was the script. It took less than a week for the first draft of the script. It was basically the treatment fleshed out with dialog and details of each scene. We spent another week or so going back and forth as they made edits based on my feedback. Sometimes I wrote specific lines of dialog for them to change. Other times I made general suggestions on something that I wanted different and they rewrote it per my guidelines. In the end, we came up with a script that I loved.
The next step was pre-production. They developed the storyboards and searched for actors, props, and locations. I was utterly impressed by the quality of the storyboards. The drawings were so good that they could easily be illustrations in my book. I received headshots of actors and photos of costumes, props, and locations. Each of which I was able to approved before they moved forward with it.
Once everything was ready, they set off and filmed each shot needed for the trailer. It took three weeks from the filming to see the first cut of the trailer. This was probably the hardest part, playing the waiting game. They say good things come to those who wait. I don’t know if that is always the case, but it certainly is with Film 14.
I was jumping for joy when I saw the first edit of the trailer. It didn’t yet have the final special effects, but the raw footage was amazing. I instantly knew that I made the right decision focusing on one live action trailer instead of three animated trailers. It was my book coming to life. I now know what it is like for famous authors to see their book on the silver screen. Since my trailer is very special effects driven to feature the fantasy aspect of my book, it took another month to finish all of the final rendering. We also still needed to find the right voice over actor and composer for the music. In the end, it was a complete work of magic.
LONGEVITY WITH FILM 14
Traditionally published books have a short lifespan. They are pushed out into every store at once. They have a brief marketing period of a couple weeks. If sales don’t immediately hit, then the marketing budget is slashed. By the end of the quarter, most of them disappear.
This is why I love being an independently published author. I am not in it for sales over one quarter. I am here for the long haul. I write my books out of passion for my readers to love. I will be marketing each book for years to help new readers discover them. I am so happy to now have one of the best book trailers I’ve ever seen to help promote my book.
For years to come, I will always have this trailer to show to new perspective readers. When they watch it, they will see the quality in the trailer. This will lead them to discover the same quality that I put into every sentence of my writing.
I am now in the midst of working with my illustrator on my new book Lexi Vega and the Starlight Stone. It is the first of seven in a new series. I’ve already started discussions with Film 14 for developing a book trailer for it. This time it will be ready for the book’s launch to make the biggest impact!
