I paid three Fiverr artists to make me a cinematic book trailer

Different prices; different results. Was it worth it? You be the judge.

So, I hired three different Fiverr freelancers with different price points to make me a trailer for my new novel, Acid Christmas, and here are the results. Poll at the end to let me know which one you liked best, and at the end, I’ll also tell you who I’d use again in the future. But let’s start with why the heck I would do this.

Now, full disclosure, I know how to edit videos. I’ve worked in the field professionally in the past, and I’ve edited entire feature films, music videos, and commercials, but over the years, because I edited for hire, I stopped enjoying it. It feels like work and when I edit for myself; I get into a loop where I’m hyper-critical of my own work. Then I spend too much time on my own video projects, tweaking them and obsessing over them when I would never do that for a client’s video.

Just as it’s hard to edit your own writing, it’s also challenging to edit your own videos. It’s better to have someone else do it.

So, knowing my weaknesses, I decided to hire out. This experiment was an upfront investment, but I rationalized that all three Fiverr video editors were cheaper than any single video editor I might hire locally. Plus, I figured I could reuse the book trailers every Christmas when resharing the novel. I’d also add the videos to the book’s Amazon page.

Was it worth it? Would I do this again? I’m not so sure…

But first, in case anyone doesn’t know, what is Fiverr?

Fiverr

If you’re not familiar with Fiverr, it’s a place to sell and buy digital services. It’s the digital gig economy at its cheapest. Fiverr offers things like “For $15, I’ll make you into a talking goat avatar,” or “I will create a viral TikTok from your mom’s photo.”

Fiverr is a great platform that also sucks. Some creatives run lucrative businesses on Fiverr and others waste hours and experience nothing but frustration.

There are also some pretty unhinged and funny things available for purchase on Fiverr like this:

Still, it’s the cheapest place to go to hire digital freelancers, and sometimes, the results are fantastic.

The Pros and Cons (literally there are cons on the platform, so watch out.)

I’ve used Fiverr many times in the past for various things. For example, on my audiobooks for Cactus Friends and Mushroom Honeymoon, I narrated the books myself but hired someone on Fiverr based in Morocco to mix and prepare the files for Audible. The sound engineer, linked above in case anyone needs one, was more than happy to take my American dollars, and I got a great result in a short time for about 10% of the U.S. price. In this respect, Fiverr is the 4-Hour Work Week lover’s dream, but the results are not always so great.

With the Acid Christmas audiobook, I hired a pro audiobook narrator off Fiverr with excellent reviews and a great audition because I felt I couldn’t deliver on the characters’ different accents; I needed a pro. However, though the pro promised delivery well before the book’s release date, I still don’t have even half the audiobook, over a month later, and there isn’t much I can do about it. I’m getting a discount as an apology, but I would have rather had the audiobook on time.

From my experience, Fiverr is always a gamble. No matter what the reviews say, you don’t know how things will turn out.

Book Trailers

These days, big publishers often create book trailers for new releases or make animated book cover videos. Many video editors on Fiverr also offer this service and even segment by genre, promising things like “I’ll make you an amazing scary horror book trailer.”

Even for big-name authors with traditional publishers, these book trailers are usually quite simple from an editing perspective, and far less complex than movie trailers.

The challenge for book covers is also that, unlike movies, no footage already exists for the book, and shooting new footage or creating illustrated animations is very very expensive, so book trailers are mostly either composed of stock footage or motion graphics, aka key-framed motion of the book cover’s graphic elements.

I’ve never seen a book trailer with footage produced specifically for that book trailer.

Here is an example of a simple book trailer using stock footage from a big publisher that probably took only a few hours to make:

And here is one that looks simple, but is actually more complex:

García Márquez's Until August animated book cover trailer

My 3 Trailer Experiment

Inspired by the hilarious Fiverr test videos of bass player Davie504, where he hires multiple Fiverr pros at different price points, I began my own “fun” Fiverr experiment, and I found three different Fiverr video creators, at three different price points, and gave them all the same source files (including the book cover art) and instructions:

• Make a book trailer under 30 seconds long.

• Include the cover.

• This is the plot of the book:

  • Acid Christmas is a dystopian holiday tale with a packed airport, unending snow, and a mysterious book of LSD.

    Weary and worried about an impending funeral, flight attendant Candi is on her way home to Vegas when a sudden blizzard grounds her flight. Delayed in Toronto without a winter jacket, she waits for the snowstorm to end; only it doesn’t stop… and the temperature isn’t the only thing that’s dropping...

    Stuck inside, she must confront disaster, grief, and lust, along with her new friends: two cute men, a journalist, and a donut dealer named Teddy with the Crooked Tooth.

    But are they really friends? Everyone has a secret, even Candi, even the government she wants to trust, even the sky, and certainly the strange book of psychedelic stamps she finds.

    Is the unrelenting winter weather supernatural? Extraterrestrial? A work of nature? Or a man-made weather attack?

    Will Candi make it home for Christmas? Will anyone?  

    Warning: drugs, sex, and dead raccoons.

    *This speculative, apocalyptic, and trippy novel contains drug use and sexual content. 

• The trailer must include the book cover.

• Dystopian, creepy music, even better if it has bells or a creepy holiday sound.

• I also sent them both of the book trailers above as examples.

Now, unlike the Fiverr sound engineer, all three Fiverr video editors I hired ended up being difficult to work with. So, I’m not linking to any of them, as I wouldn’t wholeheartedly recommend them. Their videos weren’t terrible, but they all ended up requiring more back-and-forth than normal. At the end of this post, I’ll tell you the company I would recommend instead for an animated book trailer, should you ever need one.

All the Fiverr pros I picked had mostly five-star reviews, and all promised to send me the video within seven days.

Take a look, and tell me which one you think was worth the price, if any!

#1 — The $52 Book Trailer

This was the cheapest option I could find that had decent reviews and a quick turnaround. He had 2,200 five-star reviews, putting him in Fiverr’s “Top Rated” category. This fellow was based in the UK and promised, “I will create a cinematic book trailer for you.” He offered three revisions, and I used all of them. He also ended up going over his promised delivery by a week and went over the 30-second time limit set in my instructions.

To his benefit, he asked me for footage ideas and gave me a sheet to fill out about imagery and taglines. However, then he didn’t use most of my footage ideas. Our geographic time difference also caused communication challenges, and there were delivery issues, but for $52, pretty good! I sort of feel bad for paying so little, but I suspect this British guy takes the orders and then farms the editing out to cheaper freelancers abroad.

Let me know what you think!

#2 — The $95 Book Trailer

This gal promised, “I will create a sensory customized animated book trailer.”

“Sensory customized” really got me. She was based in India, probably isn’t a cute girl IRL, and had 6,800 five-star reviews, making her a “Top-Rated” pro, according to Fiverr. She allowed three revisions, which I used, mostly because her music choices didn’t follow the genre instructions, and even by the 4th, she wasn’t nailing the music, but that was that.

The $95 results! What do you think?

One positive, she gave me the video in multiple aspect ratios and resolutions for different platforms, which the other providers would only do for an extra fee.

Given that it came with commercially licensed music and multiple-sized videos, I’d say this was a fair market price for what I got, but not a “deal,” because the motion graphics are very simplistic. I could see adding this to the end or beginning of a more detailed trailer.

#3 — The $275 Book Trailer

At this price point, the creative, based in Ukraine, promised a “3D animated, high-quality professional book trailer.” He had 25 five-star reviews, so a bit riskier, but his portfolio looked the best out of the three creators. He also offered three revisions, and I also used all three as he initially made the flight attendant figure old and unattractive, so the revisions were mostly used on that character.

I also realized once we got into the order that this fellow didn’t do music. That was a bummer for the price. Though for sharing on social media, this isn’t as much of an issue, since many platforms let you pair videos with pop songs. For the example below, I went on Soundcloud and found a copyright-free audio track, but it’s harder to add the right music after the video is finished. It’s preferable to edit the video to pre-selected music. Oh well.

Let me know what you think of this one.

To me, this video captures the book’s vibe the best, but it’s also kind of weird. Not sure it will make anyone want to read the book, which is the goal of a book trailer.

Your Vote

Which did you like best?

Who I would recommend for book trailers in the future?

I know some authors read this Lagoon, so I’ll give you a solid recommendation. As I mentioned, none of these Fiverr people were easy to work with. None followed the instructions on the first try, and all delivered the trailers late.

However, during this process, I heard another author raving about getting A+ book promo images from a company called Miblart which makes indie book covers. For $50 they will make an animated video of your book cover.

FOLKS. They turned this around in 24 hours, delivered the animation as promised, didn’t require much messaging, and I needed no revisions. Their video was simple, but it worked, looked professional, and came with commercially viable music, which I wasn’t even expecting.

I ended up using their video on my book launch day.

I have no affiliation with the company, but I would recommend them for this service.

Here is that video:

Final Thoughts

Would I do this again or use any of the Fiverr pros again? Probably not. For the number of back-and-forth conversations I ended up having with all three Fiverr people to obtain a remotely usable result, I could have edited a better video myself.

However, if I didn’t have any video editing skills, I’d maybe consider using #1 again, as his price was right.

Now You

Should books even have trailers?

Any other thoughts about these trailers?

Do you use Fiverr?

Do you think authors should use Fiverr? Or do you find it unethical?

Any other Davie504 fans in the house???

As always, thanks for reading!

XXXOOO

Charlotte Dune