Book Trailers

Last month Janet Koch, of Deepwater Designs talked about website design. Today she’s back to discuss book trailers.

PDD: You've made several book trailers for different authors—including me. How are writers using book trailers?

JK: Trailers are embedded into author websites. They’re sent as links to everyone on an author’s emailing list. The links are posted on listservs. They’re burned onto DVDs and sent to Moms, Dads, grandparents, and probably bookstores and newspapers. Although I haven’t heard, I suppose authors are showing them to people at book signings on laptops and putting them on bigger screens at large presentations.

Do trailers sell books? Haven’t the foggiest. I’m not sure anyone knows. But going with the theory that anything that gets your name out there is good, having a book trailer can only be a benefit. Plus they’re fun!

PDD: How similar is a book trailer to a movie trailer?

JK: Depends on the trailer. I’ve seen book trailers that are simple voice-overs over still photos. I’ve seen others that are indistinguishable from the Hollywood version. The simple ones can be just as powerful as the fancy ones – money spent isn’t necessarily what makes a trailer successful.

But the point of both book and movie trailers is the same: get consumers to spend money.

PDD: Can you picture book trailers being mixed in with movie trailers at the multiplex at some future point? (Or maybe a trailer for the movie and then the book based on it?)

JK: Nah. Not enough return on investment. I’d guess everyone in the country goes to a movie or three a year and is willing to pay around $10 a head for the privilege. Unfortunately, they don’t all buy books.

PDD: What goes into the making of a book trailer? How do you get started? Does the author come to you with a concept or do you read the book and pitch ideas?

JK: I can’t tell you how anyone else makes a book trailer, but here’s what I do:

1) Read the book.
2) Take copious notes while reading.
3) Finish the book. Think.
4) Think some more.

What I’m thinking about is how to communicate the “feel” of the book. The theme in emotional terms. What makes a reader keep turning the pages. Then I have to figure out how to translate that feel into images, music, and a few lines of text.

Sometimes ideas come easy, sometimes I have to work at it. Sometimes the author has ideas about what she wants to see, sometimes not. Like so much else in the book business, it depends.

Once the original concept is agreed upon, I start looking for the right music. Don’t know why I have to start this way -- maybe it’s all those years of piano and violin lessons -- but that’s how I get going.

At this point I’ve also begun collecting still images I might want to use. Most of them won’t end up in the final product, but having a gallery of images to choose from helps with ideas.

Then I fire up my computer and start the movie-making program. The music is popped in, then I start playing. In go some images. In goes some text that describes images I haven’t yet finalized. In goes a book cover. Add text. Decide that text is all wrong. Delete. Add new text. Slide a photo over. Add photo movement. Rinse and repeat.

If there’s going to be video or original photographs, I don’t do that until the ideas are set in stone. (Video and photography is time-consuming in all sorts of ways.) There are book trailer producers who hire actors and have scripts and expensive lighting and really expensive cameras ... but I do what I can with my low-end camcorder.

Toward the end there’s a lot of tweaking and fine-tuning. When both the author and I are happy, I upload the trailer to YouTube. Done!

PDD: How is a book trailer different from a print advertisement for a book?

JK: Interesting question. Let me think...while a print advertisement is limited to text and images, a trailer can include print, voice-overs, sounds effects, music, still photos, funky graphics, video of settings, video of people, etc. (Okay, duh.) There’s lots of room for creativity with book trailers, and there’s lots of room for dollars to be spent.

I think the big advantage of book trailers over print advertisements is the size of the potential audience. Print ads, whether bookmarks or postcards or newspaper placements, are handed out or sent individually. Book trailers are instantly available worldwide, and if you’re lucky enough to have your trailer link go viral, millions will click that little “play” button.

But as with most advertising, the point of a book trailer is to entice a consumer to the point of purchase. Can a multi-media presentation translate into sales for a printed product? Or is it primarily a way to build name recognition? Ask me in another few years and I might have an answer for you.

PDD: What are your thoughts on commercials for books? Is that something you're interested in doing?

JK: If there were a cable channel that was All Books All The Time, I could see a point to book commercials. But even then a quality production would be prohibitively expensive for almost all authors.

Me? Do television commercials? Only if I get a megaphone and a director’s chair with my name on the back.

That Thing Called BSP

Sandra Parshall

If you spend any time at all on mystery listservs (or any listserv where writers hang out), you're well-acquainted with the concept of BSP -- blatant self-promotion. If you're a writer, you've probably done your share of it. I know I have. Like the weather, it draws plenty of complaints but no suggestions for practical remedies.

We're supposed to promote ourselves, right? We're supposed to talk about our books, make people want to buy them and read them. Get online and promote, promote, promote! Trouble is, the more we talk, the less people want to listen. It's entirely possible for writers on the internet to talk readers out of buying their books.

I've seen it happen again and again. I've felt this reaction to some writers myself. They're the people who show up on the listservs only when they have something to sell -- or, even worse, when they want conference registrants to give them an award. They don't contribute to discussions, they don't offer helpful advice on any subject, they don't talk about anything except themselves and their products. "I want you to buy my books and give me awards, and that's the only reason I'm here" -- this is their underlying message. It's not surprising when such an approach produces exactly the opposite of the desired result. The offending authors would probably be amazed if they knew what people were saying about them privately.

So what's a writer to do? How do we promote our work online without making enemies or boring people to tears?

I can't tell adult professionals how to behave, but I can tell you what I, as a reader and book-buyer, respond to favorably and unfavorably. If a writer contributes to a discussion with intelligent comments and shows that she's interested in something other than herself and her own career, my heart will warm toward her. If an author has complimentary things to say about someone else's writing, I'm going to like him. Through discussions and recommendations, I'll form an idea of what a writer's work will be like, and if it seems appealing, I'll go looking for it. If I get hit over the head every few days with BSP ("Guess what wonderful thing has happened to me NOW!"), I'm going to develop resistance to both the writer and the work.

Sure, I like hearing that a new book has been released. But I don't want to hear about every single review and every single interview and every new print run. I think all writers should stop before we post such information on a listserv and ask ourselves, "Who besides me really gives a darn about this? How many people will I be annoying if I post this?" Some information belongs on a writer's personal web site or blog and nowhere else.

I am on one list, the e-mail discussion list of the Sisters in Crime Guppies Chapter, where BSP is freely allowed because the entire purpose of the group is to help people get published. Each achievement is a validation of the group's worth. Even there, though, some members complain about being inundated with BSP. It's not surprising that they would hate it even more on a list with a broader purpose.

I know that many people share my distaste for excessive BSP online. I know because I've discussed it with them. Yet it continues unabated, like junk mail, everywhere we look. That makes me think that either (1) a majority of people just love reading BSP, or (2) a lot of people would rather quietly unsubscribe from a list than complain loudly enough about its content to provoke a change.

Which category are you in? How do you really feel about BSP from writers? Have you ever sworn off a writer because he or she did too much blatant self-promotion? Do you ever wish listservs would ban BSP? Or do you enjoy it -- or simply not care? You can post a comment anonymously if you're afraid of offending anyone. Or write to me privately at sparshall@verizon.net. I want to know what all of you have to say about this ever-present feature of our online lives.