#video: best book trailers

8 Comments

• 

  I’m totally promoting in the interest of a friend, but the trailer for Todd Keisling’s ‘A Life Transparent’, isn’t half bad. It’s produced by Emma Fissenden, a good friend of ours who is an ace video genie. You can view it here:

  http://vimeo.com/11480298

  And of course, back him over here:

  http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/toddkeisling/a-life-transparent-second-edition-and-beyond?ref=users

  

  • phill
  • June 16, 2010
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• 

  God, how good is that video for “Going West” amazing. I agree with you about the plethora of crappy book trailers with cheap off the shelf animation technologies and dire music cos you don’t want to pay royalties for the good stuff…

  It’s a tricky balance, between something visual for the YouTube generation and yet not forgetting that it’s promoting a book, you know, like literature … at which point all the YouTubers quit viewing.

  I’ve made 5 video readings which are being edited down. But the author doesn’t appear in any of them, nor do you hear his voice. I hope they’ll be as outstanding as that first one here.

  Thanks for sharing and raising a pertinent debate

  • marc nash
  • June 17, 2010
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• 

  Hi Marc,

  Thanks for stopping by. Indeed it is a tricky balance, but I think it’s not that much different from any other non-visual medium turned visual. What it requires is creativity and decent understanding of production standards.

  The way I see it, the biggest hurdle is how many authors are expected to do most of their book marketing themselves. If you are a musician under a label, the label realises that a video clip is one of the most effective ways of marketing an artist. But if your publisher doesn’t see the value or the potential of a book trailer, where do the funds come from?

  Ads for books are just so rare anyway. I can’t remember the last ad I read, saw or listened to for a book. It’s all done through editorial. I’m a writer and I don’t even read book reviews. How can you review 500 pages in 500 words and achieve a useful summary of anything but plot. Great books are great words, how can you summarise great words? Everybody hates people saying “books are subjective” but to most of us they still are.

  So if less people are reading editorial, then surely the methods of marketing have to change in some way if novels are going to have continuing impact.

  I think we are often quick to forget that books are a visual medium. Book covers sell books. The leap is not too great to video.

  • Mark
  • June 17, 2010
  Reply
• 

  You’re absolutely right about the anathema of writing a 500 word review or synopsis, and a 30 word strap line – if we could do justice to the book in that then we wouldn’t have bothered writing 70,000 words in the first place would we?

  It’s funny what you say about book ads in general. On the London Underground as you go on the escalators there are a load of wall ads as you go up or down and yesterday I noticed that 4 in a row were for different books from different publishers. I also bought Steve Toltz’s novel from seeing a hoarding on the Underground.

  I view a book trailer as having the same relationship to the book as a pop video to the single it’s promoting; yes it’s primary function is to sell the book, but it’s a work of art in its own right as well, just as the pop video is or ought to be anyway.

  • marc nash
  • June 18, 2010
  Reply
• 

  I had forgotten about the London tube book ads. I’ve never seen similar here in Perth, but I wonder if they exist in the “city of literature”, Melbourne too?

  Although all of the above trailers work in their own artistic way, the one I like the most from a marketing point of view is the Gone one. That to me is how you uproot all the traditional notions of what constitutes book advertising. There are no words. Someone has cleverly honed in on the emotional trigger that the book delivers (in this case suspense) and used that key selling point to craft an advertisement – not a book reading.

  As marketers we are taught that you need to get under the skin of a product to uncover and present the key selling benefit – which often is an emotional benefit and not a tangible characteristic of the thing. Whereas most book marketing feels rooted in the tangible aspects of a book. Words are important, but it seems we can’t distance ourselves enough to realise that more often than not, its the emotion that stays with us after the last page. It’s the suspense that makes us turn the page, and the tragedy that brings on the waterworks.

  I think if more book marketing took that angle, and moved away from summarising, then the appeal would also widen.

  Movie trailers do it really well. They rarely provide an accurate summary of a movie (how many times have you said “but the trailer looked good!”). Instead they compress and deliver an emotional punch to get you interested in seeing the actual movie. The key difference being that the product itself has visuals and audio the advertiser can draw on. Book marketing should step outside the available resources more often, as the Gone trailer demonstrates.

  • Mark
  • June 18, 2010
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• 

  Mark, great post. Loved the trailer for Going West – also found it curious that so many are animated.

  For me, there is a big disconnect between books and trailers – I’ve thought this way for a while. That a trailer is a logical extension of words on bound paper is a big psychic leap for me to make. However, you make an insightful point about reviews becoming less relevant as a sales device and therefore having to change book marketing methods.

  I completely agree that a move away from summary must be made. Here in Sydney we have stands of “free postcards” (postcard-sized ads) around the place. A few years ago I noticed among them postcard-sized single chapters of books, including Alex Miller’s Prochownik’s Dream. Maybe it didn’t work, but new methods of getting “the word” out there are needed.

  Some of the above prove that, apart from a bit of creativity going a long way, done right trailers for books can work. And if nothing else, it will expose the work of a writer to an audience they may not have otherwise had.

  • TF
  • June 18, 2010
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• 

  Hey TF! The postcard chapter is an interesting idea.

  I have gone down the route of readings instead of trailers, but not boring shots of middle aged bespectacled writer with paunch, reading book in hand. I storyboarded them and used mainly hand-held props as befits the YouTube generation. I wish my bl**dy editor would get his finger out so I can show you guys them.

  I understand what mark says about the emotional punch/hook, but ultimately for me it does come back to the words. It’s what the book will stand or fall on. I do always feel cheated when the movei doesn’t live up to the trailer. I’ve stopped believing in the validity of their message

  • marc nash
  • June 20, 2010
  Reply
• 

  Yeah I too like the postcard concept. I think words still play a part, but it’s how the words are supported by visuals – as you say, you ultimately have to read the book.

  Make sure when you do get your editor into line that you send through your trailer!

  • Mark
  • June 20, 2010
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