Book Trailers

Yes, I know, I must do my two booktalks for non fiction.  Those are coming,  I promise, but I decided to read the two articles about  book trailers and do this post now.  While I am thinking about it.


I can understand the use of book trailers, but I, myself am not a fan.  To me, a book lies in your imagination, and you create in your mind the image of the characters, setting, ect.  If the character is already defined by an actor, I think it loses something.  I also agree with the article that says that many book trailers are a bit cheesy and overdone,  they are trying to be too much like a movie, and sometimes that does not work.

Watching several book trailers I did discover that the ones I like best are written for children.  I thought this one for the One and Only Ivan was rather nice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtPdqV2crQ0

It was not a lot of dialogue or fast action,  just simple graphics with text quotes about the book, and piques your interest and makes you want to learn more.

Many book trailers (like Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters) were so cheesy, I knew immediately it was NOT a book I wanted to read, so perhaps a book trailer could backfire.

I also didn't mind the ones with the authors describing their own book and letting us see who the author is.  I find that somewhat interesting, and it keeps the video book related.  It especially works in the biography or memoir category because they can use images from the book, photgraphs, ect.   and the authors words to sell the book.  I really liked the trailer for the Glass Castle, as she described that her mother was on the street, but you also saw her mother and knew that she was currenlty OK.  As this is a biography, a reader would have interest in the true "characters" of this book.

I think book trailers may gain great appeal to younger readers.  Teens and kids are always online checking out videos, and making things viral, so I do believe the audience is more geared to them.    Perhaps as they grow older, adult book trailers will gain in popularity.     It is a tool to keep an eye out for, even if they are not for everybody.