Book Trailer: How to Make One With AI, Step by Step

Authors have no footage, no cast and usually no budget, so most book trailers end up as stock pictures under a scrolling blurb. A book trailer works better when the book's own words do the selling, with images that leave the characters to the reader's imagination. We read In Our Time, a 3:47 illustrated short by Flick's in-house filmmaker Jaime Yao that sets short lines of prose on title cards between 97 animated clips, because it is built from the parts an author has. This guide turns it into seven steps, with the frames and prompts, for a trailer of about a minute.

How is a book trailer different from a movie trailer?

How do you make a book trailer with AI, step by step?

1. Step 1

   Write one hook

   Write the single question your book leaves open, in one sentence, because a trailer that summarizes the plot gives the reader no reason to open the book.

   • Test it against the back cover: it should raise a question and stop before the answer.
   • In Our Time opens on rooftops in the rain and gives the title at 0:28, then shows a man at a desk with no explanation of who he is.
   • Everything after this step should make that question harder to ignore.

   

   

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2. Step 2

   Pull lines from your book

   Choose four to six short lines from your own pages and set each on its own card, because your sentences are what make the trailer belong to your book and nobody else's.

   • In Our Time cuts to cards such as "The romantics have pulled out" at 1:14 and "You can't get away from yourself" at 1:42.
   • It splits one sentence over two cards, "afterward many are strong" at 2:48 and "at the broken places" at 2:56, so the viewer waits for the end of it.
   • The picture is a draft of the card from the canvas, and the closing card credits its quotation to Ernest Hemingway on screen, as you should credit any words that are not yours.

   

3. Step 3

   Set the look from your cover

   Describe your cover's art in one sentence and open your prompts with it, so the trailer looks like the same object a reader will find on the shelf.

   • This shot's prompt opens on engraved woodcut look with dense cross-hatching on rough paper.
   • Give the model your cover as a reference image, then name its medium and palette in words.
   • One strange image, such as this whale over a city, is what a viewer remembers and shares.

   

   

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4. Step 4

   Show the world, not faces

   Film hands, rooms, objects and weather rather than your hero's face, because readers cast the characters themselves and a wrong face can put them off the book.

   • The man at the desk in In Our Time is seen from behind and through his hands.
   • Motion stays small: 81 of the film's 97 image to video clips run 5 seconds.
   • This prompt names the three things that may move, then rules out the rest, including any readable text.

   

   

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   Locked camera. Same framing. Keep exposure and white balance fixed. Keep the warm band on the paper unchanged. Do not move any unmasked pixels. Do not add new objects. Do not make any text readable. Keep all lines abstract.
   
   Animate only the right hand, the pen tip, and the top sheet surface. Everything else stays still, including books, jar, desk wood grain, background wall, and left hand except for tiny stabilizing squeeze.
   
   Timing, total 5.0 seconds, not looping.
   
   From 0.0 to 1.2 seconds. The pen tip draws a short line about 12 millimeters long across one existing abstract line. Direction is left to right at a shallow angle. The nib pressure is light. The wrist shifts forward by about 2 millimeters. The top sheet shows a very slight indentation under the nib.
   
   From 1.2 to 2.0 seconds. The pen lifts 2 millimeters. A tiny dot of ink forms at the end of the new line. No shine. The left hand fingers make a small squeeze and relax once. Motion is less than 1 millimeter.
   
   From 2.0 to 3.4 seconds. The pen lowers again and adds two short ticks, each 4 millimeters long, spaced 8 millimeters apart, parallel to nearby lines. The wrist rotates a few degrees. Paper deformation stays very small.
   
   From 3.4 to 4.6 seconds. The pen tip pauses above the paper. A single dust mote drifts across the warm band on the desk from left to right. Size is 2 pixels and very faint.
   
   From 4.6 to 5.0 seconds. The pen settles to a stop on the paper with zero pressure. All motion eases out to stillness.
   
   Negatives. No light flicker. No glow pulses. No camera move. No zoom. No tilt. No shadow drifting. No new papers. No stamps. No logos. No reflections. No wet smear. No text becomes readable.

5. Step 5

   Make a clean title card

   Isolate your title on a flat color so you can lay it over any shot in the editor, and read every generated letter before you use it.

   • Jaime kept the painted title and replaced everything else with solid green, using the prompt below, which is Chinese for "keep the words in our time in the middle and change the background to pure green."
   • A fuller version of the title on the same canvas has a garbled line under it, "BARCELAN BAELONA," and the film shows the title by itself.
   • Set your name and any small text in the editor, because a misspelled author name is the error a reader notices first.

   

   只保留中间“in our time"文字，然后把背景换成纯绿色

6. Step 6

   End on where to buy

   Close on the cover, your name, the publication date and one store or link, held long enough to read, because the end card is the frame that asks for the sale.

   • Say one thing to do, such as "Out now" or "Preorder," and not a list of retailers.
   • Put the link in the post as well as the frame, since most people cannot click a video.

7. Step 7

   Cut to a minute

   Cut to about a minute by keeping the hook, your strongest lines and the end card, then lay one music track or your own narration across the whole thing.

   • In Our Time runs 3:47 as a short, so a trailer of it would keep its cards, a handful of shots and its ending.
   • Generate a score with Eleven Music, or narrate your lines with Eleven v3.
   • Watch it once with the sound off, since many people see trailers that way on social feeds.

   Open the In Our Time workflow

   

   

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What should a book trailer look like for your genre?

00:05

Literary fiction: one strange image

A single impossible animal in a realistic street suggests a book about more than its plot, and the prompt keeps its movement to one slow look up.

Locked camera; keep the exact framing. The colossal white stag makes a small look-up: the muzzle and gaze lift slowly by about five to eight degrees toward the rain-dark sky, hold for a brief beat, then ease back to the original pose. No step, no drift; antlers and torso stay steady. Heavy diagonal rain keeps the same direction and intensity; window lamp and building lighting remain unchanged. No steam, no glow, no new elements.

Jaime Yao, director of In Our Time

00:03

Thriller: a crowd with its back to us

The slow push toward a closed shutter asks what is behind it, and no face is shown, so the reader supplies the fear.

Very simple, subtle shot. The camera slowly pushes straight in toward the closed silver metallic roll-up shutter on the red brick building, moving forward past the townsfolk who stand still with their backs to camera. Gentle steady dolly-in, no other motion, minimal ambient sway. Warm golden-hour light holds steady.

Marius Jensen, director of Still Time

00:30

Science fiction: one big event

One line sets a period and an event, which suits a genre that sells its world, and this take shows how little a prompt needs to start from.

Make a cinematic scene from this 1984 scfi action blockbuster film, where these 3 vehicles come to a screaching halt as they realize the freeway ahead is collapsed. 

Sam Wasserman, director of The Miracle

00:05

Children's books: a calm establishing shot

A slow drift keeps an illustrated look intact, and our guide to making a children's cartoon show goes further with the same film.

The spaceship travels slowly through space. The thrusters glow and pulse gently. Subtle light glare sliding across the round windows. Very slow, calm, cinematic drift. Do not rotate. Establishing shot mood.

Katrin Ann Orbeta, director of Mila & Sasa

Questions about making a book trailer

More on making trailers in Flick

Films in this guide

• Jaime Yao · In Our Time
• Marius Jensen · Still Time
• Sam Wasserman · The Miracle
• Katrin Ann Orbeta · Mila & Sasa