Book Trailers
Thursday, March 18, 2010 So today I'm turning the tables and asking you guys a question! I'm going over all of my marketing ideas/crap for The One That I Want and can't ignore the fact that book trailers have become a to-do since my last book. And the thing is...I just don't get them. Am I missing something? I can understand, sure, why they're a catching little way to grab momentary attention, but in order to grab said attention, don't people have to already have heard of your book in the first place? (I.e, yes, a book trailer is great to post on your website, but people have to come to your website to see it, and if they're coming to your website, it's because they already know about your book. See what I'm saying?) Or is it that the book trailer might just push them over the edge to make a purchase, akin to a movie trailer that you've heard about but seeing it makes you ready to head to the theater?
I would love, love, love for you guys to share whether or not you think book trailers are effective and/or worth it, and if they are, how an author can best use them. I really don't get the concept, but maybe I'm just old school. And, so you don't feel like you're just altruistically helping me out, I invite you to post links to your own trailers so we can get a taste for what works (and you get a little promotion). Anyone willing to chime in?
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Reader Comments (32)
As a reader, I don't really "get" or care about book trailers. They're often pretty amateur too. The best one I've seen is probably for Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, and even then I thought it was just fun b/c it was silly. I still have no interest in reading the book.
To me, trailers & commercials = movie.
But maybe at the ripe old age of 24, I'm just not hip anymore... :P
Great topic! The only people I ever hear discuss book trailers are people who work in publishing, so I'm not sure if it's something that really catches on with the general public.
Book trailers may help spread word of mouth if a fan sees it and posts it on Facebook - allowing all their friends to view it and spread the word too. But I agree that many book trailers are amateur and make the book seem lame.
"The Making of a Book Cover" was pretty cool as book trailers go. It's a video montage that compresses hours of labor into 2 minutes on the making of the cover for BLAMELESS—Gail Carriger's third book in the Alexia Tarabotti Parasol Protectorate Series. It was well done and fun to watch and got a lot of attention among publishing peeps. So maybe reviewers would be more likely to take notice of the book?
My favorite ones are the ones with subtitles or have no talking. I am mixed on book trailers. A friend wrote a children's book that's not the typical kind. Kids have to write the story. And the trailer worked well for them. They can also be media to add to your web site and Facebook page.
I actually like every book trailer I've seen, but it might be because it seems a novelty, even still. The most effective ones don't show the characters' faces, but keep them either artfully faded/profiled or quickly move shots so that you can't see what the characters actually look like (like the covers of your books, for example), so that the characters are visually left up to readers' imaginations.
I've been lured to buy books based on a short, what-iffy, intriguing trailer that highlights the premise. If I had the budget to do one, I think I would try it and see if it got lots of hits and was FBed and RTed around. Can't see how it would hurt, unless it truly didn't get views.
I vote yes, but I seem to be only one who likes trailers!
:) Melissa Senate
That BLAMELESS book cover trailer WAS cool. And I think it works because it does something ELSE besides advertise the book. It's entertaining by itself, and while you're being entertained, oh yeah, here's this cool looking book.
Here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoDCiTsS7dU
I think maybe they work better for YA books. Katie Alender had a good one for BAD GIRLS DON'T DIE:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36lBeqV7V00
But her book was spooky and action-packed so I think it lends itself well to a trailer. (And I already knew about both these books before I saw the trailers.)
Mostly, Allison, I agree with you for the reasons you outlined. I don't know how you'd stumble across a trailer if you didn't already know about the book or author, unless people started sending it around for entertainment's sake, i.e. going viral, but how likely is that? How often does that actually happen? I remember another book trailer poking fun at the whole book launch process which was hilarious if you're in publishing and went viral among our crowd but honestly I can't remember the name of the book, nor the author.
"I've been lured to buy books based on a short, what-iffy, intriguing trailer that highlights the premise. "
Oooh, Melissa, which ones? Can you think of examples?
I was told that books on Amazon with trailers sell up to 25 percent more -- it was a discussion about business books, but if it increases sales just a little an author can't afford *not* to have one.
Today, in fact, is the day my very first book releases! And like any writer, I want the very best for it. So a friend offered to film a trailer for me, to show off the story, and to show me off to segment producers (if I should be so lucky):
And I love it. Happy birthday book.
http://bit.ly/TeaTrailer
Hi Allison,
I acutally like book trailers for some books. Katrina Kenison's book trailer for her Gift of an Ordinary Day memoir is fabulous, but it works because of the topic: crossroads at midlife and kids.
www.katrinakenison.com
I don't look at fiction ones except for Beth Kephart's young adult book ones and that is because I am a daily reader of her blog.
Lisa
www.singleparentsavings.wordpress.com
Sarah -
You're right about Amazon: after I posted this, I spoke with my marketing folks who said that they can use a book trailer - albeit usually one with the author him or herself - to boost sales on sites like Amazon. Which is something I hadn't considered, so might take that route.
Allison
Kristina, I've been trying to think of the ones I've seen during the past year. This is the last one I saw and it made me want to buy the book. If you go to her home page, she has other trailers too.
http://www.jessicabrody.com/trailers.html
I'll try to think of the others too.
:) Melissa Senate
Of course a book trailer is useless if it just sits on your web site. The $1.5 million commercials companies put on the Super Bowl are worthless as well if no one sees them (Which would be my dream, since I'm a high school football coach who hates the NFL with a passion that is holy in its ferocity.)
Here's a very real problem with selling books: I don't think, particularly in this economy, that I am terribly different from most people in that I refuse-- flatly and without equivocation-- to purchase a book by an author I don't know. I am not going to spend $11.99 for a paperback only to discover that I can't stand it. I MAY consider picking it up at the library or downloading an eBook somewhere to test drive the author, but I personally hate giving books back if I like them (plus I just moved to this state), so I don't even have a library card.
Back matter is useless. Terry Pratchett's American publisher is notorious for having back matter that had little or no actual connection to the book. Del Rey used to habitually used frontispiece excerpts that highlighted minor little scenes and character interactions as if they were major parts of the plot. Some publishers are even dumb enough to not put back matter on the book at all and instead put critical reviews or "Other titles by this author." What the heck is that supposed to do to market the book?
So how do you overcome this, particularly in a sound bite culture where news articles must be fifteen seconds long? Well, a simple and effective way is to trailer the book just like a movie.
Most trailers are 7-20 sentences-- this is less than most back matter, but they are interspersed with visually appealing photos, videos, or even creative use of black screen.
Back matter doesn't have a stirring soundtrack to excite you. The pictures or video also supply more information to the viewer than the one or two pics on the cover of a book. Book trailers are also VIRAL. No one, and I mean NO ONE, is going to take the time to type out the description on the back of Simon Green's "The Spy Who Haunted Me" and email it to a friend. They MIGHT take the time to tell a friend to look it up on Amazon, and if that friend remembers then they might see the depiction there.
However, in my in-box today I received 12-- TWELVE-- recommendations from friends for youtube videos. It takes mere seconds to click on a link and forward it to a friend. Before I shut down my Facebook page I would get 30-40 video recommendations a day, depending on what groups I was active in.
Saying "doesn't the viewer have to be on your page already to see the trailer" is a disingenuous conclusion. We are interacting on your page right now because something brought me here. I know nothing about your writing, but your twitter post intrigued me so I thought I'd stop by to chat about it. If there were a trailer here, I'd probably click on it like I did on Katie Weiland's blog, just out of curiosity.I sent the link to her "Behold the Dawn" to some 18 people who I know are interested in historical fiction of that time period. If three of them send it on to another six people, that's a number! (I don't know what number that is. I got hit on the head once and forgot math.)
Trailers will pop up in google searches, blog links, twitter posts, Facebook walls, Myspace profiles, and hundreds of other places on the web. They are uniquely viral. For the time it takes to create one they offer a gigantic potential ROI over any other word of mouth advertising method for virtually ANYTHING.
This is a good example of a viral video. This one has over six million hits in several incarnations on Youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZs8k4pJcyk . (Why people insist on posting the same video ten or twelve times is beyond me.) I myself have linked to it from some six or eight sites. Whether you agree with the sentiment or not, the music alone is worth taking the time.
The "Crossed Swords" trailer on my blog took about 45 minutes to produce using the free Windows Movie Maker. That was my first time using that software and I am recently returned to the PC from the Mac world. I could make a new trailer in about 30 minutes now.
I think they are well worth the effort.
Melissa - thanks for sharing that. I'm off to click away on it.
Chris - those are very good points about videos being viral. I guess you just hope that they take off in some way, but that's a gamble that I imagine is well worth the cost and effort of making the trailer itself. Thanks for taking the time to weigh in.
I've watched like two book trailers. Both gave me migraines for some reason. So... now I avoid book trailers.
Thanks for having me, Allison!
I have had the same hesitation with book trailers. One of the great things about books is that the reader's imagination defines what the story looks like. A book trailer begins to define things that it's more enjoyable for the reader to create. I think with your book trailer you should drive the questions that motivate the story line –What IF you could see into the future? You should use your book trailer to invite others to respond to that question with their own videos. The good news is, links to book trailers are easy to toss in the social media hopper and distribute.
Book trailers seem to work for practical straightforward information. Here is a trailer that I liked, but it was sent to me by a friend, I didn't just stumble upon it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZO_PSWouF9U
Abigail-- I think you might be onto something. When I did the XS trailer I asked the viewer to put themselves in the shoes of the protagonists. "What would you do...?"
My purpose was to make the characters seem both human-- and larger than life. They are humans who were offered a choice: do or do not. They are larger than life because they chose to DO, even with all the risks that accompany it.
I really like the way you think and I am of the opinion that you might have just articulated one of the reasons why book trailers will either succeed or fail.
BTW: If anyone needs a trailer done, shoot me an email. In another life I'm a football coach, and I've done my own highlights for years. I can either help you put your own together even if you're not familiar with video editing software at all, or I can even do it for you. I work cheap-- if you can afford Mountain Dew.
I'm always so confused when I see a trailer on TV for a book. First I'm all excited, b/c its usually a mystery author and I think they've finally made one of their awesome books into a movie. Then I actually look at the TV to see it, and realize its for a book. Which is somehow disappointing, even though the book is usually better than the movie anyway. And then I wonder why they even had to bother with a trailer - is their readership down? Is it that crappy of a book that it can't sell itself?
And then I realize I need to stop watching midnight TV.
While I think book trailers are cool, I don't really get the point either -- at least until a commenter mentioned Amazon. That makes total sense. So, I guess that means you'll do one? :)
I created a real simple book trailer (for free) to put on my blog and my Facebook page. Since then I've come across some pretty nifty book trailers. I don't think any kind of advertising is bad - unless the book trailer is so bad it would turn off a potential reader. People are so visual these days that I think book trailers are just the next thing to come.
Allison,
I'm not a fan of book trailers, unless they blow me away, like this one did from agent Kristen Nelson's blog for her YA author, Simone Elkeles.....I have to say it may be a good way to get new readers, that's when they've worked for me. For authors I've already read, I just don't bother with them.
This is by far, the best book trailer, probably because the guy is so amazingly hot...:)
http://pubrants.blogspot.com/2010/03/taking-book-trailer-to-new-levelguest.html
I think a previously published author, like yourself, would do well by a book trailer. As a reader, I'm much more apt to forward/facebook/tweet book trailers to recommend a book. As a book blogger, I also like to have that to link to the books I review. I'd say yes!
Interesting that you bring this up, as I've been considering one for my debut novel. I def think they're a DO. Agreed with the other commenters that if it's a good trailer, it can only HELP. And, they have a way of going viral, so yes, well worth the effort. And, Allison, you are a such a pro in front of the camera that this would be a total asset for you. Can't wait to see your trailer! xo
Most trailers for me are a dime a dozen and boast nothing terribly intriguing about them. They are difficult to do well, given that it generally takes a bit of money to make one of respectable quality. I rarely see one that makes me say, "Oooo, now that's cool and interesting." Those do stick in my mind even if I don't run out and buy the book. I think for them to have any shot at effectiveness there needs to be something atypical about them, you know, besides the parading slide show, poor music, and the cut/paste blurbs that define the story. The author in the trailer sort is good if the author has the presence for it. Again, something beyond just droning on about the book. A decent trailer, even if parked on the author's website is still useful. If it sticks in the reader's mind, it can be useful over the longterm, such as when a second book comes out, i.e. "Oh I remember that author. They had a pretty cool trailer on some other book. Maybe I'll check this one out." Sadly, most authors don't have the knowhow and/or money to invest in making a good trailer. They aren't easy to do well, in my opinion.
I like the idea of book trailers, and I think anything that could potentially attract a reader's attention is a good thing. Unfortunately, the majority of book trailers I've seen are poorly produced DIY projects that drag on and on. I don't think a trailer should be any longer than 30 or 45 seconds. Partly, the medium is so new, just having a book trailer is considered cool. Kind of like when the Internet was in its baby years, and the level of website quality was pretty low. Now, I think there's an expected level of professionalism and creativity that sites need to reach. And the majority of author sites I see now look terrific. I expect that book trailers will eventually follow suit.
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