BookTalk.org

Seems to me that the promotion of word using moving images can set people up for a fall. It's almost like promoting a toy boat with a cruise ship. Despite this concern, I have just spent the past three days working to create a book trailer!! It's only now that it's done and posted that I am wondering if there was any real point to this exercise?! Have book trailers ever made you want to buy the book? Do you think this is the future of book marketing, or just another grappling attempt to sell books by an industry in free fall?

If you are in the former camp, what was it about the trailer that made you interested in the book. If you're in the doom and gloom camp, can you tell me why you think trailers are a way to make those who have experience in the film industry richer, while authors and publishers marketing coffers get poorer?

If you'd like to see our trailer, (it comes with all inclusive meals, a port side cabin and a meeting with the captain), just visit:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ll356HbjiRo

That's a terrific posting. That topic had been going around for awhile recently with the tread of writers making trailers about books. Myself, I was really ignorant of the process of book trailers when I started out. For my book, which should remain nameless, I came up with a concept of a mini film of images from the story. When I read postings from another thread, In Three Guys and One Book, one of the comments was that there was something apologetic and sad about a book trying to win readers over through a visual medium like a movie. Luckily, my mini book trailer had not been made yet so I was able to do an 180 degree and as I realized, my mistake was that I was trying to make a film about a movie, not about a book. I even visualized some major triumphiant mood music, something menacing in my head. I even thought, "Hey! This book might lead to a movie!" But as I learned, we can't be only creative and brilliant, we must also be precise. As I thought about it, we are selling books, not films nor plays. Then on Goodreads, I became inspired by a trailer for Gillian Flynn's Dark Places which only revealed her book cover, a wooden door with a padlock, and then the quote...."I have this meaness inside of me like an organ." shimmered into view which was a really kick ass quote. If book trailers continue to be made, it would be made as I believe it should be made, with a film of the book cover and some quotes that the author might think would be kick ass. However...someone might be smart or dumb enough to swim against the tide and get some attentions by filming cinematic images from the book and might stand out. It made me respect the advertising business and the skills and craft it must take to sell or shill for a product to provoke people into thinking about it and then buying it.

Terrific trailer too. It looks like you are on the right track with that trailer.