Trailers

As I have written before, there's more to this publishing business than writing a book!  I thought I had the top of the line in creating movies when I discovered Windows Live Movie Maker on my brand new computer (new a year ago). That was when I started noticing that not only did movies have trailers, but books did as well. So, I decided to learn how to create a trailer. I can assure you, it is not easy!

First you must find pictures that fit your story line. There are a lot of free downloads out there and you can also take your own pictures.  But then you have to trim your four hundred page book down to perhaps a paragraph of provocative sentences. And you must listen out for the very best audio clip to put behind the scenes.

And then you will discover that the wonderful, glorious trailer that you created in Windows Live Movie Maker will crash again and again when you try to save it because it is some flaw in the program. 

I downloaded converters that might make a .mlmp file open and convert it to something usable. No go. 

Finally, after hours and hours of trying to make a flawed program work, I found a clue on the internet that suggested that I download the previous version of Windows Movie Maker (.wmv). I then had to recreate the entire movie. It works! And I could use those converters I downloaded to change the .wmv file into an .avi file!!!! That was what Peter Wentworth, my publicist who is also a producer, requested. Now comes the interesting part. Can he create magic with the basic pictures and copy I finally managed to send him?

I am amazed that elementary schools across our nation are actually having children create book reports by producing trailers. If it takes them as much time as it has me to find pictures, audio files, and make a doggone program work, when do they have time to read books?