Timothy Young

The untitled book trailer

I know, it sounds like the book trailer does not have a title. It’s the book trailer for my new book, untitled. I know, I know, now it sounds like my book does not have a title. It does. The titled of the book is untitled. So the title of the book trailer is untitled book trailer. Are we clear now?

My Youtube Channel featuring all of my book trailers and some other videos.

One of the things you have to do as an author is tell people about your books. You could just walk up to people on the street and start a conversation about it but that tends to scare people away. You could pay for advertising but that usually costs more than you are going to earn as an author. So you find less expensive (FREE) ways to do it. You write blog posts (see this post as an example), you write posts on Facebook, you write shorter, more pithy posts on Twitter and you put cool pictures on Instagram. All of that helps but one of the coolest things you can do is make a book trailer.

The spread from untitled that inspired the book trailer even though it’s not shown in the video.

So after writing the book and illustrating the book you have to sum it all up in a one minute trailer. How do you get people interested in reading your book in a trailer without giving away the whole plot? In the case of untitled, the story is kind of weird to begin with, so what would be a good way to show that without actually showing it?

Two of the parody book covers from the above illustration that are used in the book trailer. I love working the styles of some of my favorite illustrators.

Lucky for me I have the skills to make my own. I have worked in animation and I know how to work with Adobe Animate (The new name for Adobe Flash). I was in Hershey for the Pennsylvania School Librarians Convention. I had printed and framed a spread from the book as a raffle prize. The illustration features my characters, Ignatz (a capybara) and Carlos (a coatimundi), who are complaining about having me as their author/illustrator. They are looking at a bunch of other author’s books altered to be about capybaras and coatis. They are small details on a busy page but I started thinking I should feature them in the trailer. To create them on the page I had drawn them in full first and put them into the final illustration separately so I had the original versions.

Bonita Allen, Pennsylvania PTA President, was the winner of the signed print at the PSLA convention.

So I pulled it all together and added music from my good friend Samwise Aaron. He has provided the soundtracks for a few of my trailers. So here is the final trailer. I’m going to do my first give-away on my blog. Please leave a comment below and one person will win a copy of untitled. Deadline is May 28, 2019.

30 comments

  2. Can hardly believe that a capybara and a coatmundi are finally coming together to share their story! So excited to share this with my learners and inspire them to create their own unlikely buddy epic stories.

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  9. I have a feeling this book will be fun, funny and a great read-aloud.

    The reaction of the characters on the cover, make me think of the time I read The Stinky Cheeseman to third graders. A sort of disdain, that ultimately turned to great fun, laughter, and lots if kids wanting to borrow the book so they could take a closer look.

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  11. Love it! Though when I was watching the video, I had a weird moment wondering, Wow, it would be odd to look at the library or bookstore for a book titled UNTITLED… What’s the title? Untitled. Well, then. We can’t look for something that is untitled can we? What words are in the title? Untitled. I can’t help you if you don’t know the title…LOL. I can see this is going to be fun…

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  12. Very clever to leave it as “Untitled”. It kind of makes you want to know more. And who isn’t up for a good giggle!

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  15. I absolutely love this! I know my kids will too! I’m a first teacher and would love to add this to my slowly building class library 🙂

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  16. You have me curious, and I hope, lots of readers too! Here’s to a successful launch, untitled of course!

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  18. Thanks for expanding my ideas on absurdity in picture books, even before the book comes out. How clever you are! Especially love those plays on other known books… brings this right into being an homage book [how could it go wrong?] and it’s own journey… that blank page they are in is really making me curious! I’m feeling sure it is going to spark some kids writing their own stories as well. And then COATIMUNDI!
    You are right about them being sweet. Summer after my first year at Parsons, I worked at a pet store. Back then rules on exotic pets were much looser. We had a capuchin monkey, baby skunks the boss “rescued”, and one day someone brought in a pet coatimundi they had to give up. I so wanted to buy it myself, but living in a NYC apt as a student… would not exactly fly. I got to walk her outside in a harness – and she climbed on me, grabbing in my hair, nuzzling my face. Someone came and bought her within 2 days, and I’ve always wondered what happened to her.

    Eager to travel with your characters and see where they go!

    bonnie fireUrchin lambourn

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  22. What a wildly creative title! Can’t wait for it to be published. One of my dorm-mates @ Bard had a pet coatimundi–fascinating creatures who don’t often star in books:-)

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  28. Congrats on your clever picture book idea. I can’t wait to read it! And your book trailer is a great beginning to build buzz. Good luck with this title. You’re already getting great press. Enjoy the ride.

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