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Video killed the literary star: book trailers

JA July 25

Book trailers have been around for a while now. Back in 2002 some adventurous PR boffin had the bright idea that whatever worked for movies could work in a similar way for books. Put in enough quickly cut scenes, intimate close-ups and soaring music to pique the viewer’s interest and, all going well, they should be persuaded to invest in the final product. Book trailers haven’t completely caught on, but they are slowly creeping into our literary vernacular. With the help of Youtube and the online file-sharing craze, there are a good number of trailers floating about. There are even independent sites specially dedicated to it like Book Trailers and Book Screening (which even has a section for book seeking publication). In Australia, Allen & Unwin feature book trailers on a special section of their website.

But does this really work as a form of marketing? Frankly, I think I'd just rather stick with the humble blurb and review. For one thing, books are not movies. Apart form the cover, there is nothing visual about the form, so conceptually (and economically), it’s pretty difficult to create a two-minute teaser. With film it’s largely a matter of editing and splicing, but with books you have to start from scratch. The results I’ve seen so far suggest a degree of awkwardness with the medium. Most book trailers are hopelessly amateur – gravitating between trying to imitate a blockbuster movie, or else taking itself too seriously to be truly entertaining.

Kazuo Ishiguro’s publishers may have had the right idea with their trailer for Nocturnes. This gentle animated teaser by George Wu shows candlelit paper figures coming and going against a background of darkness, alongside a beautifully moody score. Jonathan Safran Foer went for a more humorous approach in order to promote Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. With his brother as a reluctant camera-man, Foer re-enacts his young character’s fictional search for someone named Black by picking out the first name in the phone book. It’s funnyish, and Foer’s brother has some great deadpan moments, but it still has that kind of cheesy home-video vibe and after eight minutes the end is rather underwhelming. Also along the humour vein is this promo for the next Quirk Books endeavour Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters. I shudder at the thought of this book, but it’s had almost 80 000 views, so I guess it's worked in a way.

One area that might make good fodder for trailers is graphic novels or illustrated books. In this case the images are already part of the deal. Have a look at this promo for Emily the Strange (a brand which has led to graphic novellas, comic books and a novel), animated by Net Toons and Sarah Frucht. With its simple, quirky illustrations and Birthday Massacre music, it does a good job of appealing to the YA market.

Update: Here's one I like, via Andy from Electric Literature

Electric Literature presents Jim Shepard's "Your Fate Hurtles Down at You" (trailer) from Editors Electric Literature on Vimeo.

 

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