Recently discovered this strange form of advertising while browsing on Amazon. A few immediate thoughts of my own. . Why? Surely books aren't applicable to this kind of visual advertising? . Doesn't this effectively defer your own interpretation of the story and the setting by have prescribed images in place? . Isn't that the blurbs job? . Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Discuss.
I don't see anything wrong with it, Different people like different things. Some might like a little visual "kick start" to help them imagine the story. I dunno, it may be pointless but far worse things have been pointless too. Anyone hear about the battle/massacre at wounded knee?
I think they'll work for books as well as for any other products, personally. If you have a really good video advertisement that makes people want to buy a game, or buy a hair care product, or a set of car tires, why not a book? Blurbs don't do a thing for me because I never read them.
Oh, how come? My problem with these trailers is that they kind of insinuating that they'll be made in a movie eventually so why bother trying to imagine something yourself. Same problem I have when I see 'Now a major motion picture from..." written on a front cover. I wonder how many people will just think "Ah well, clearly I don't need to read the book I can watch the movie instead". From the ones that I've seen there's clearly little effort put into them. The best one I've seen so far is probably this - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuZeeoHAW1Q
I don't read them because more and more often I was running into spoilers in the blurb. Something like "Tom was an orphan living on the streets of Los Angeles, until he rose through the ranks of a criminal gang and had money and power he never dreamed of. Now he's in a cross-border dispute with international drug cartels and just trying to survive everyday." (Horrible blurb but just using it for purposes of illustration). So then you open the book and it starts with Tom as an orphaned kid trying to make it on the streets. Might as well skip the first two hundred pages because you know what is going to happen. So I don't read blurbs at all. They tell far too much about the story and it irritates me
I think the opposite when I see the 'now a major picture from...'. To me it implies the storyline was good enough to be made into a film and books are always better that the film version anyway so it makes me more inclined to read the book. Like if the book had been terrible no one would have wasted the time making it into a film so it's probably worth reading. Not fool-proof logic I know but seems to work generally. And quite often as well if I've seen a film I'll want to read the book. I think with the book trailers though it probably is quite effective mainly because seeing and hearing something is just an effective way of advertising. That said I don't think it's an especially good idea but I can still see why people think it'll work. I personally wouldn't watch the trailer of a book to decide if I wanted to read it - I would read the first page and if on amazon read reviews by people who have read it.
I hardly ever see book trailers and I really don't see the point in them. I think they give off the wrong idea about what the book's about sometimes and it just seems too much like a film or something. But hey, if it spreads the word that you should be reading blah blah then surely it's a good thing. Whether it works or not is up to the viewer I guess.
I can certainly see you reasoning, I guess I'm thinking more from a young person perspective who is more inclined to visual media. Thinking about it, the only film that really made me want to go out and read the book it was based on was Into The Wilderness By far the best movie-book combo that I've read/watched. The movie presents this character and the book supplies extra historical context for the type of adventure this young man goes on. Fair enough, but then how do you know which book to read? Do you judge it by it's title? By word of mouth?...by it's cover? (sorry)
A well-done book trailer will encourage a reader to delve deeper in a decision to read a book. A poor one will certainly turn off a potential reader. In my experience, only a handful of sales (that I know of for sure) can be directly traced to Flank Hawk's book trailer--where it was the primary driving force of interest. Maybe a few more as I am speaking from reader comments/emails and the vast majority of readers/puchasers I never hear from (email, posted review, facebook, etc.). A good trailer is a tool, one more 'device' to help bring a reader to a positive decision to give a book a try. One of the very best tools is word of mouth. When one reader tells a friend about a book they should read, that's far more influential.
