March 25, 2010 | By: Tracy

Book Trailers?!?

Yesterday I posted a book trailer for Rules of Attraction



I have to be honest. Until I saw it posted on Kristin Nelson's blog, I had no idea there was such a thing as book trailers. Am I the only one who didn't know this was being done?? Granted,  I haven't been trying to get published for years, but I had never heard of trailers for books before. 

This is putting the cart in front of the horse, I know. The most important thing is landing an agent first, and then finding a publisher who wants to sign you to a book deal. I do wonder about book trailers though. If my lovely little manuscript becomes a book, am I going to have to do a trailer? 

Computer Technology + Tracy = Match Made in Hell

What do you all think about book trailers overall? Kinda cool? Or kinda cheesy? I'm undecided.

Here are a couple that I thought were kind of neat:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_UUVwTaemk  The Graveyard (though I mostly chose this one, because I think Neil Gaiman kinda has a sexy voice)



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzowFJTApfY&feature=related Pride & Prejudice & Zombies (because I still think the book is the most absurd thing ever)

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1205459932512 Eternal (because it seems like a video version of a query letter)

4 witty remarks:

Unknown said...

I think book trailers are cool. I hadn't heard of them untl about August, but ironically, I had seen trailers for fanfiction. Of course with that, there's the video already out there, it's just manipulated to fit the fanfiction.

I'd love to do a book trailer for my story. My only worry is about copyright issues for images and music. I know that there are some free use photos and music though, so it is doable.

Tracy said...

Mary, are you any good at that stuff? Would you be able to put one together for yourself? That would be my problem. I could probably come up with a concept and I'd find pictures or whatnot ... but being able to actually turn it into a video, I'd be clueless!

Matthew MacNish said...

Okay, first of all about your 3 links.

I've only read two Neil Gaiman Novels. Neverwhere and Anansi Boys. Anansi Boys was good and Neverwhere was amazing. However, I have seen Stardust and Coraline and I thought both were great. I'm not sure if he wrote both screenplays but I know they were at least adapted from his books.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies sounds and looks really stupid ... but it's probably really funny. I'm not super into zombies and I imagine they work better in video games and movies than books but who knows? I may check this out someday.

Eternal looks pretty cool from the trailer, but it's pretty hard to figure out what it's about.

As far as trailers in general I think they're a great idea. I really don't think it's something you would ever have to do yourself though. If you ever decide to self-publish you probably won't need a trailer anyway.

If I absolutely had to I could probably throw something together between Photoshop and Powerpoint, but it would look much better done by a pro.

Tracy said...

Thanks Matthew. I haven't actually read any of the three books, they were just some of the more unique looking trailers I came across. And as far as Eternal being hard to figure out what it's about ... guess we're not the only ones with query troubles. LOL

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