If you want your book to have a trailer that feels like a movie, Book Trailer Director is made for you. Thomas Umstattd Jr. built this AI tool so a novelist can upload a manuscript, choose a trailer length, a shape, and a visual style, and get a shot-by-shot plan for the trailer. You make the video in an AI video tool, and this tool does not make it for you.

You can make one without a film crew or any film skills. Book Trailer Director plans the trailer, then you generate each shot in an AI video tool such as Grok Imagine and cut the clips together in a simple video editor. The plan ends with the steps in order, so you always know what comes next.

Yes, and the plan matters more than the tool. AI video generators make beautiful clips, but they do not know which moments to show, what to say over them, or when the music should drop. Book Trailer Director supplies that plan, and you make the clips with an AI video generator.

No. It writes the brief, and you make the video. You paste each shot's prompt into an AI video generator such as Grok Imagine, record or generate the spoken lines and the music, and put everything together in an editor. Those tools are separate and have their own prices.

Choose the length that fits where you will share it. Book Trailer Director plans a 60-second, 30-second, or 15-second trailer. Longer suits your website and YouTube, and shorter suits a feed where people scroll fast. Each length is planned as its own trailer with its own opening, so a short one never feels like a long one cut down.

Pick the shape of the screen your readers watch on. Choose horizontal (16:9) for YouTube and your website, and vertical (9:16) for Reels, TikTok, and Shorts. A vertical plan is built for small screens, with captions for every spoken line.

A reader picks your book because it feels like a story they already love, so the trailer should feel that way too. Book Trailer Director begins by deciding what kind of movie your book would be, in words a fan of that genre would recognize, then shapes the trailer to fit. If it misreads your book, say so in the chat and ask it to rebuild around what the book is really about.

Fear of spoilers is the first worry for most novelists, and the trailer is built around it. It stays in the early part of your story and keeps your ending, twists, and secrets out. Only you know exactly what you want hidden, so read the plan before you share it, and ask for a change if a shot gives away too much.

Your readers already picture your characters, so the casting sheet follows how your book describes them, using your own words where it can. Where the book does not say, such as a hair color, the plan marks it as a choice so you can change it. AI video can still drift from one clip to the next, so check each still before you build on it.

Not unless you want it to. A trailer voice pitches your book in fresh words, the way the back cover does, so a stranger knows in seconds what kind of story it is. Every fact in it comes from your book. If you have a few favorite lines, paste them into the optional field, and the plan gives the best one or two a moment of their own. Read the voice-over against your book before you record it, as you would check back-cover copy.

Yes, and you can leave it to the tool. Choose live-action film, 3D animated film, hand-drawn animation, or anime. If you choose "Let the tool choose," it picks the style that best sells your genre and says why.

Yes. The plan includes a music plan with a prompt you can paste into an AI music generator and search phrases for stock music libraries. It also plans a title card and an end card with your cover, the title, and a call to action for you to choose. You add the cards in your editor.

It takes a few minutes for a longer book. Making the clips takes longer, and how long depends on the video tool you use.

Book Trailer Director is for novels. It works on fiction only, and it does not plan trailers for nonfiction books.

If you have written a novel and want a trailer that feels like the movie of your book, it is for you. Indie and traditionally published novelists can use it, whether the book is about to launch or has been out for years. If you are traditionally published, ask your publisher's marketing team before you post a trailer built around your book. It is not for an author who has no manuscript yet, or one who wants a finished video without using any other tool.

Yes, and it can make the wait before release more fun. A teaser for an unreleased book gives your first fans something to share. Upload the whole novel so the plan knows where your story begins to give secrets away.

Yes. Run each book on its own whenever a release or a sale comes around. Choose the same visual style each time if you want your trailers to feel like a set.

You can keep chatting after your plan arrives. The plan offers other directions for your trailer, and you can ask it to rebuild around one of them, or around a different length or shape. A rebuild is a complete new plan, so it uses credits again.

The clips come from the video tool you use, so its terms decide how you can use them. Check those terms before you run ads or sell anything with the trailer. If you are traditionally published, check that you may use your cover.

Yes. Author Media does not store, track, or view anything you post to this tool. The tools reach each AI through its business API with privacy set to the maximum, so the AI companies do not train on your words.

Book Trailer Director is included with any Novel Marketing Patreon membership of $10 per month or more. That membership also unlocks more than 80 other author tools in the Patron Toolbox. AI tool use draws from your membership's credit balance, and the amount used varies with the request.