When I was a kid and got a toy I’d wanted with the desperation of a child, I’d play with that toy exclusively for days. Okay, weeks. None of my other toys mattered. Of course, when the newness wore off, it got relegated to the toy bin with all the others.

I’m the same way with books in a series. If I like a series, I’ll read every book in the series and wait, impatiently for the next. It wasn’t until I wrote a series that I stopped being angry at authors for not writing fast enough.

This past week, my online author group, The Author Transformation Alliance, posted a challenge on doing a book trailer using a free program called Lumen5. I won’t go into all the specifics of how it works here; you can go look for yourself. It has a paid version and a free version, and the major difference between them is in the paid version, you don’t get an “ad” for Lumen5 in the closing credits and your video will be HD. And–big plus for me–it’s far less complicated than other video-making programs.

Before my novel came out, I’d purchased a couple of inexpensive book trailers from a vendor. They were great, but the ability to customize them was limited. Not so with Lumen5.

Bottom line. I not only did a book trailer for my debut novel, A War of Deception, I also made ones for each of my collections of short stories, my novella, and my novelette–six book trailers total. In two and a half days. (And, there’s one or two more, I think, to do.)

Yes, obsessive much.

But it’s another tool for an indie author. The money saved purchasing book trailers can now go toward buying a professional cover or paying my editor, etc.

Anyway, here’s one of my projects, the new book trailer for A War of Deception. I’d love to know what you think of it. Comment below. (And, yes, I caught the typo; it’ll get fixed.)

To view the trailers I made for my other books go to my Facebook Author Page.