Bo Bennett On Free Book Trailers For Authors

HOST: It's good to have you back, Bo. Last time we talked about StarringMyKid.com, and you described this whole thing as almost a byproduct of the infrastructure you had already built. That word "byproduct" really stuck with me because today's topic, BookReelz.com, feels like the missing video marketing layer in the author pipeline we've been mapping out. So, book trailers have been around forever, but many authors treat them as something they never get around to. What's specific about this moment that made you build this? GUEST: the technology uh prior to well recently this couldn't be done. If you wanted to do a book trailer, you usually had to go out to somebody like Fiverr or some kind of service. You had to give them your book. They had to have a good understanding of the book, be able to put together a script, map it out with images and different video angles or if they're they're doing video, you could do some video. Um have a soundtrack, narrator, get coordinate this with a narrator, professional narrator to do the voiceover. And the whole production was a headache and it took a really long time and it cost a lot of money. And people were justified in how much they were charging because of all the work involved. But the problem is, like a lot of marketing, it's not just the cost of the marketing, it's how much are you going to get back in return. Videos are fantastic to to run on social media, but you're not going to make thousands of dollars because of a video. You're not going to sell uh tens of thousands of dollars worth of books in order to justify making thousands of dollars in profit back to pay for that video. It's just not going to happen. So, book marketing using videos really wasn't the best idea. until recently. Now that you can literally create a 15-second teaser video for free on bookbrush.com. Uh I mean, you can't beat that. And even a professional 30 to 45 second video is only $29. So, it's crazy how inexpensive it is and it's a no-brainer to get this done. HOST: So, you've driven down the cost significantly, but you also mentioned return on investment. Since we're talking about AI generation, let's talk process—is the AI reliable enough to get a compelling script and relevant visuals, or do authors typically have to do a lot of those do-overs you mention in your pricing? What does the AI typically get wrong? GUEST: The AI does an incredible job initially. I think people don't quite like the direction. This is the people that use the do-overs. They usually don't like the direction the AI has chosen to go in terms of describing the book. They may want to go in a different direction. So they could do that. They could edit the text. They could tell it to go in another direction. If they don't like a particular image that AI has chosen, they could just say replace this one image. So they have a lot of control over the final product. And I think most people, at least from the feedback that I've received so far, they like the first video, the first one that comes out, but since they have all these tools, they say, why not? Let's let's make it exactly what I want. So let's do it a few different times. HOST: That makes sense, that authors want to get very specific with the portrayal. Now, the premium tier also includes multilingual narration in ten languages. Are your authors typically finding international opportunities and revenue streams through that, or is it just a speculative feature for most? Who's using that? GUEST: Yeah, honestly, that's a speculative feature. We have a lot of multinational authors, authors who've written books in different languages. So, we put that feature in there for them if they want to take advantage of it. But yeah, honestly, the site's too new now to really have any good data on multi- language. um multilingual usage. HOST: Fair enough, it's still early days. You also mentioned social media formats—15 second teasers, 30 to 45 seconds. Does a finished trailer from BookReelz come formatted for platforms like TikTok or Instagram Reels, or does an author need to figure that out on their own? GUEST: No, it comes completely formatted. So, they don't have to work they don't have to try to figure any of that out because that's difficult enough for even experts to try to figure out all these different formats and the best thing to do. Uh the best way to export the video. But, we take care of that for them. So, they just simply download the video for Tik Tok or for Instagram or for uh YouTube. Or for uh Facebook, whatever promotion that they're doing for the website. And they just use the correct video for the matching format. It's that simple. HOST: That's incredibly helpful for social marketing. You just mentioned YouTube, and there's a running debate on whether traditional, minute-long book trailers are dead and the real asset is a short 15 second hook for platforms like Shorts. Which format are you betting on with BookReelz? Or are you providing both? GUEST: We provide both. So users can and authors can try them both out. Whether they want to try out a 15 second short or if they want to go with the full 45 second to 60 second full video. Either way. HOST: That's a great approach, letting authors test different formats. You recently flipped on the SelfPublishing.pro integration, so authors' book details now flow straight into BookReelz. In the full pipeline from BookBud through distribution and outreach, where does the trailer belong? Is this a launch-day tool or something authors should use continuously? GUEST: Well, launch day is definitely I guess it makes the most sense to have some kind of marketing assets ready for launch day and promoting on social media. But book videos can be used anytime. Even if you've written the book 10 years ago, why not? Throw the video out there, get some renewed interest in it. HOST: That makes sense, for maintaining visibility. Now, some pushback from authors is that video ads don't predictably sell books, because they argue that word of mouth outperforms everything. Do you have any data, even anecdotal, on conversion? Does video actually sell books? GUEST: Video does not sell books directly like a click ad. Although at the end of the video, we kind of make the pitch, here's the book and this is what the cover looks like and here's where it's available. So you got the pitch there. But what the video does is it helps people to start talking about the book and thinking about the book, which ultimately ends up referring or resulting in word of mouth where people would actually buy more books. So it's just one piece of the much larger marketing puzzle. HOST: That makes sense—a piece of a larger puzzle and a way to spark conversation. Bo, before we go, for listeners who want to keep up with all the latest Archieboy businesses, where's the best place to find you and your work? GUEST: At our website archieboy.com and for information on the website we've been talking about bookreels.com. HOST: Bo, this has been great—and honestly, we've now traced the pipeline from first draft all the way to book trailer, which feels like a milestone. Let's get you back on soon because there's an obvious next question we haven't touched: what does the author do the day after the trailer goes live? Until next time—that's a wrap.