Picture book trailers: what works for authors

A picture book trailer works when it lets people see the art, meet the hero and feel the problem in under a minute, then stops before the ending and tells them where to find the book. It doesn’t need to be expensive. It needs to be clear, quick and honest about what’s inside.

Why do picture book authors need help being seen?

Because there are so many books. Bowker counted more than 3.5 million self-published titles with ISBNs in the United States in 2025, up 38.7% in a year, Publishers Weekly reported. Juvenile nonfiction and juvenile fiction were both among the five largest self-published categories.

And most authors market on a small budget. In the Authors Guild’s 2023 income survey of 5,699 published authors, the median full-time author earned $10,000 from books in 2022. A trailer that costs hundreds of dollars has to sell a lot of copies to pay for itself.

How do people find picture books?

In many places at once. A 2020 survey of 4,314 American readers, summarized by Rachel Noorda and Kathi Inman Berens, found book discovery spread thin. The most popular single method, recommendations from friends, was the first choice of only about a fifth of respondents, followed by favorite authors, family and social media.

For picture books, the pictures do much of the selling. In Nielsen’s 2015 survey of parents, buying children’s books on impulse was the norm: 53% said half of their book purchases were impulse buys, another 26% said most were, and only 3% said they never bought on impulse. More than 60% did no research before buying, and for children under seven, price, illustrations and packaging played an important role.

So a trailer’s job is simple: put your real pages in front of people wherever they already are, in a post, on a store page, at a school visit or in a library newsletter, and make them want to open the book.

How do authors make trailers today?

Usually one of three ways. A homemade slideshow of the pages set to music, which is cheap but often slow and silent about the story. A freelancer or a studio, which can be lovely but costs real money against incomes like those above. Or a phone video of the author paging through the book, which is honest but hard to hear and harder to watch on a small screen.

The common mistakes are the same whichever route you take: too long, no clear hero, the whole plot read out with the ending included, and no end card saying where to buy or borrow the book.

What makes a picture book trailer work?

There is little research on trailers, but what exists is useful. In small classroom studies published in The ALAN Review in 2010, Denise Davila found that trailers shape what readers expect from a book, for better or worse. A trailer built around one character and one plotline gave viewers a clear, shared idea of the story. Another left viewers without enough sense of the story: 52% said they didn’t want to read the book, and some took its slow start as a sign of a slow book.

From that, and from practice:

• Under a minute. Thirty to sixty seconds fits every place you will post it.
• One hero, one problem. Who is this about, and what goes wrong?
• Real pages. Show the art people will hold in their hands.
• Stop before the ending. End on the hero’s choice or the biggest question.
• A clear end card. The title, your name, and “out now” or “coming soon”.
• Captions on, so the trailer works with the sound off.
• Decide who it’s for. On YouTube, a video whose audience is children must be set as made for kids, and YouTube then turns off features such as comments and personalized ads. A trailer aimed at parents, teachers and librarians may not be made for kids, so set the audience honestly.

How do you write the script?

Write it to be heard, at a gentle pace. A minute of hushed reading is roughly 100 words, so every line has to earn its place. A shape that fits most picture books:

• The world, in one line. “At the bottom of the bay lives a whale who has never sung a note.”
• The hero. Who they are, and what they love or want.
• The trouble. The moment things go wrong.
• The stakes. What could be lost, in a line or two.
• The choice. What the hero decides to do about it.
• The tease. A question the book answers. Then the title card.

Read it aloud before you use it. If a line makes you take a breath in the middle, split it. If a line tells the viewer how the story ends, cut it.

Where should a picture book trailer go?

Everywhere your readers already are, plus a few places authors forget: pinned to your social profiles, on your website’s page for the book, in your newsletter, at the start of a school or library visit, and in the emails you send to booksellers, librarians and reviewers. A short vertical video plays well on every phone, and the moment people meet your pages is the moment they decide whether to look for the book.

What does the Book trailer skill do?

We make Chasca, so take our part of this with that in mind. We built the Book trailer skill for self-published and small-press picture book authors, illustrators and small publishers.

• Add your pages, up to 12 as pictures or one PDF. No finished pages yet? Describe the book, and pages are drawn in a picture-book style.
• Every page is read, and the moments that tease the story best are picked, in an order that builds. Your own pages are used as they are, not redrawn.
• It writes a short teaser: a hook, the hero, the trouble, the stakes and the hero’s choice. It never gives the ending away.
• It is read at a relaxed, hushed pace, with each sentence captioned under the page, in any of the 79 languages Chasca narrates. Use one of our narrators or your own custom voice.
• It ends on your title card: the title, “A picture book by” and your name, and “Coming soon” or “Out now”.

Trailers are vertical, 9:16, and 30 or 60 seconds long, made for Reels, TikTok, Shorts and store pages.

What won’t it do?

• It isn’t for characters or books that aren’t yours. Use only art and text you own or have the rights to.
• It won’t reveal the ending.
• It won’t invent an author. If you don’t give your name, the card leaves it out.
• It won’t make a full read-aloud. It makes trailers of 30 or 60 seconds.

How do you make one?

1. Choose six to twelve of your strongest pages and export them as images or a PDF.
2. Open the skill and type the title, your name and one line on what happens, then choose “Coming soon” or “Out now”.
3. Choose 30 or 60 seconds, the language and the voice.
4. Watch it on your phone, check the end card, and post it with a link to where people can buy or borrow the book.

Your first two videos are free, up to a minute each, watermarked and with no card needed. After that, plans start at $9.99 a month; see pricing.

Sources

• Milliot, J. (2026, March 17). Book output topped four million in 2025. Publishers Weekly.
• The Authors Guild (2023). Key takeaways from the Authors Guild’s 2023 Author Income Survey.
• Noorda, R., & Berens, K. I. (2021). Immersive Media and Books 2020: New insights about book pirates, libraries and discovery, millennials, and cross-media engagement. Publishing Research Quarterly, 37, 227–240.
• Nielsen (2015). Acting on impulse: Very few children’s book purchases are planned.
• Davila, D. (2010). Not so innocent: Book trailers as promotional text and anticipatory stories. The ALAN Review, 38(1).
• YouTube Help. Determining if your content is “made for kids” and Watching “made for kids” content.