How to make a book trailer ... for free

Getting your book published is the best feeling ever, it's what you've been aiming for as a writer for so long, but the hard work isn't over yet. Now you have to sell it, as promotion is most likely going to be down to you as a new author. Prepare to be busy!

You have your blog, your Facebook page and your Twitter account and it hasn't cost you a penny - excellent! This is just as well since you may have spent all the housekeeping money on your launch party and your royalty cheque is months away. It's time to get creative.

I discovered I had Windows Movie Maker already installed as part of my standard software package, so I used this program to create my book trailer. All you need to do is open it up, import pictures in from your hard drive and create a 'storyboard'. Then you need some music to layer over it. I downloaded from a royalty-free website . You add in your own titles and narrative, tweak about with the pictures to fit the length of the music and that's it!

It really was easy, it took me a few hours to learn and produce my first ever book trailer. Next time I might get really flash and add video content or do a voice over. Such fun! So here it is: Storm's Heart the movie:

What do you think? Are you going to have a go yourself?

And if you now feel inspired enough to buy a copy of Storm's Heart in paperback or digital format you can do so from Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com , Salt Publishing and all good online book stores.

I'd love you for it!

(And many thanks to Kathryn Brown who was generous enough to tell me how to do all this in the first place! You can never have too many friends.)