How Much, How Many, How Long

I was watching book trailer videos yesterday and it got me to thinking. How long should a book trailer be? Is there any set standards?

We have different standards in all the other areas of writing, but has anyone thought about the length and impact of Book trailers?

Here are some of the standards when it comes to Writing…

Word Count By Genre...

We all watch our word count when we are writing our manuscript and each genre has a specific word count that they require. I was reading on Paul Dorset’s Blog and he gave some guidelines for word count for the different ones. Check it out here.

http://blog.pauldorset.com/2011/04/5-how-long-should-first-novel-be.html

Word Count by type of manuscript…

Now someone had asked on twitter a few months ago, “How many pages in a novella?”

But the type of book, be it short story or novel, is not counted by how many pages, but by how many words.

These are the answers I found on Wikipedia  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_count

• Short Story – Under 7,500 words
• Novelette – 7,500 to 17,500
• Novella – 17,500 to 40,000
• Novel – 40,000 or more

How Many Chapters should a Book Have…

This is another question I have heard and I don’t think there is any right answer to it. I think that depends on you and how many chapters you want.

In the first book of my series, “Chris’ Journey Turning Different Corners” I have four chapters, (Due out soon!)

• “Chris”
• “Brandon”
• “Her Downward Spiral”
• “Saved By Sue”

And then I have different scenes or I guess you could call them sub chapters, but it is a novel of apprx. 55,000 words.

And in the last book of the series, I have seventeen chapters. Which I won’t list here. 🙂 and apprx. 95,000 words.

How Many Plot Points Should You Have When Outlining Your Book?

I’m thinking this should be up to you also, but I’m going to send you over to Paul on this one also 🙂 Because he has been using Scrivener for his current Manuscript and sharing with us the step by step process.

http://blog.pauldorset.com/2012/05/scrivener-7-my-first-manuscript-using.html

Okay now to the point of this post!

How Long Should A Book Trailer Video Be…

• 3 minutes
• 5 minutes
• 15 minutes

How many songs should be played in it…

• 1
• 3
• 5

In my opinion a book trailer video should be 5 minutes max. One, maybe two songs, and that’s it. Music videos are normally no longer than 5 – 6 minutes. Now I’m an 80’s, headbanging rocker, but there is just so many drum solos and guitar riffs I can put up with. I love Ozzy, but if his videos are 15- 20 minutes long, I have got to get up and go do something else. Yes, I’ll leave the video playing on my computer, but I won’t sit there and watch it. Now think of a movie trailer advertised on TV. They’ve got a 30 second or minute slot time to make you want to see that movie. A book trailer video should grab your attention, pique your interest, and leave you wanting more. That’s it. Not tell you half the story. Not drag on and on. It’s like the blurb on the back of a book. You don’t put a whole chapter there, you write a short snippet to get the reader’s attention. And now that I’ve gone on and on…Sorry 🙂 I want to know what you think.

How long will you sit there and watch that book trailer video? How long should it be? 

Now on a different note, I have to rant…I hated the Series Finale for “House” I was disappointed! Okay enough said. Now my Mondays this fall are going to suck, so I guess I will be writing and reading more! 🙂 Watch out world Karen’s on the loose!

Maybe I should have asked, How long should a Blog Post Be? Okay, I’m going, I’m going.

Have a great day everyone!

 

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• Tagged: book trailers, how, how much, long, plot points, scrivener, videos