I’ll be blunt: I don’t get book videos.
As a reader, they generally do nothing for me. And as a web designer involved with author promotion, I’ve been struggling to understand the value vs. the cost of them. So in an effort to educate myself and perhaps shed some light on the situation, I’d like to take a closer look at this promotional tool, from my perspectives as a reader and as an industry professional. (And I want to note that I don’t offer book videos as part of my services, never have and probably never will, so these are my unbiased observations.)
AS A READER
The reader in me agrees with author Brenda Coulter’s opinions on book videos, as written in her July 2006 blog entry Those boring book trailers:
Lately I’ve been seeing an awful lot of book trailers, which means I’ve seen a lot of awful book trailers. What’s a book trailer? Nothing more than a 30-second hyped-up slide show with a soundtrack.
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Listen, I’m no marketing expert, but I am a bookbuyer, and one who uses the internet daily. That means book trailers are aimed at me. So when I say they aren’t impressing me, maybe some of the authors and publishers who are so excited about the things ought to pay some attention.
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Frankly, the trailers just aren’t clever enough to induce anyone to link to them and make them go “viral.” As I mentioned earlier, they’re just slide shows. They suggest movement by jiggling the photos and spinning them and zooming in and out, but those of us with broadband are used to watching real video clips on the internet, so we’re a hard bunch to impress.
Most of the videos I’ve seen contain still photos, so the “slide show with a soundtrack” bit sums up pretty well why those don’t interest the reader in me. There’s nothing that grabs my attention about the zooming in and sliding back and forth on stock photos, set to what I’m assuming is a stock audio track, and text that amounts to just a slow, agonizing presentation of the cover blurb of the book.
The next tier of videos, those containing stock footage (i.e. video clips instead of still photos) aren’t much better. It’s basically just a slight upgrade, and their ability to hold my attention is just slightly higher. The final and most advanced kind of video is the one using live actors and original footage. One example of this is L.A. Banks’ trailer for her Vampire Huntress series. If I were into vampire books, this one might piqué my interest, but I have one major problem with it: it’s way too long.
Here’s the deal. I have a short attention span. And I don’t think I’m the only one. Authors are advised that they have to hook their readers’ attention with the first paragraphs of a book. If you apply that mentality to a book video, then it has to do some major attention grabbing in the first scene. And then with each second that passes, keeping the viewer’s attention just becomes exponentially more difficult. IMHO, a great book video is only 30 seconds long. If it goes on for more than 60 seconds, you’ve lost me. It takes me 30-60 seconds to read a cover blurb, so if a video drags on for longer than that and doesn’t offer me anything the blurb doesn’t, then it’s a waste of my time.
Besides length, my other beef is with the cover blurb aspect I just mentioned, the “slide show with a soundtrack.” In most videos, there’s just too much text. And the pace of the text is much slower than the pace at which I read, so half of the time I’m just watching the zooming and fading effects of the photos and said text while I’m waiting for something new to appear. What I liked the most about the Vampire Huntress trailer I linked to above was the narration by the protagonist. It gave a fresh perspective, and it wasn’t just an abbreviated version of the cover blurb. Another good example is Sandra Hill’s Pearl Jinx. This one is way too long as well, but the banter between the hero and heroine is fun and unique. It didn’t make me want to read the book, but it came very, very close. Bottom line is, I don’t want to read the blurb in the form of a slow book video. I’d be surprised if there are any readers who do.
So what kind of video would work for me? Well, like I said, make it short. Super short. Tease me with a quick, delicious taste of the story that makes me want to have more. Be mysterious. Don’t give away too much information. Just give me something snappy, something that’s just long enough to hook me, reel me in, and make me go to the author’s website for more information. If the video intrigues me, I’ll check out the book. If it bores me, I won’t.
I also want something that sets the mood. If the book is a dark and chilling paranormal or thriller, give me a dark and scary video. If the book is funny, the video should make me laugh. If it’s a historical, transport me back in time. Don’t hold back. Forget telling me the details about the book and focus on showing me how reading it will make me feel. The best mood-setting trailer I’ve seen, hands down, is for Jackie Kessler’s The Road to Hell. It contains all the elements I complained about above, but the pace is pretty quick and the creators chose just the perfect combination of text, photos, and music to set the mood. This video makes me want to read the book, and that’s despite the fact that paranormals aren’t really my cuppa.
Finally, another concept is the kind of video that doesn’t focus on the details of the book at all but is aimed purely at intriguing the reader with a unique concept. Lisa Gardner’s trailer for her book Hide is the perfect example. I’m a big Gardner fan and had already pre-ordered this book by the time I saw the video, so it’s hard to judge what impact it would have made if I knew nothing about her, but I can say one thing for sure: the video is not boring. I watched intently the whole thing, eagerly awaiting the punch line. It could also prompt readers to pass the link around purely for the entertainment value of the video itself. That’s when you’ve got the potential of a video going viral, and that’s when people start paying attention.
AS AN INDUSTRY PROFESSIONAL
Ask any author, and I’m sure she’d tell you that self-promotion is a maddening undertaking. It’s almost impossible to know what works and what doesn’t—well, besides writing a fantastic book, that is. The promotional value of book videos has always struck me as dubious at best, and I’ve honestly wondered if it wasn’t mostly about “everyone’s doing it, and so should I” and some sort of peer status symbol. As in, the fancy book trailer is the publishing world’s equivalent of an expensive car or designer clothes meant to impress your co-workers.
While I do still think that there’s a bandwagon involved, authors and other industry professionals are singing its praises too loudly as a wonderful promotional tool for me to dismiss it only as an issue of status. So I did some poking around to try and understand why the book video is such a Big Deal these days.
Going back to Brenda Coulter’s blog post, one commenter said,
My vote is wait and see. Why write them off? They aren’t hurting anyone.
Which brought about my thought that, no, of course they aren’t hurting anyone. But they might be hurting some things, namely these struggling authors’ wallets. Unless you create them yourself or talk your Friendly Neighborhood Geek into helping you, book videos aren’t cheap. And as with anything that costs a chunk of money, the value has to be considered. So, are they worth it?
I’m guessing the answer is, it depends on what you do with it. I recently saw my very first book video on TV, for Stephen King’s Duma Key (high res, low res). This is a great video. It’s exactly 30 seconds long (I knew I was on to something with that number!), it’s mysterious, and it sets the mood. The thing is, while I’m sure the cost of creating it and advertising it on television amounted to pocket change for someone like King, it would be prohibitive to the average Suzy Author. Ditto on advertising in movie theaters. It would be great, and it would sell books, but who can afford it?
So what do you do with a trailer? Authors put it on their website, of course, and on networking sites like YouTube and MySpace. Which is great and fun, but it doesn’t exactly expose the author’s name or the book to anyone who wasn’t already looking for it. I’m guessing that means the sales impact of those methods is minimal. If I’m wrong about that, anyone can feel free to correct me, but I’d need some solid proof to believe it.
What I didn’t consider before I started Googling this is that there are other venues for showcasing these videos. Chris Marie Green’s post about this on Dionne Galace’s blog offers some illumination:
“I posted this on my blog as well as my other sites, then passed it to people I thought might be interested, such as fellow authors, my agent, and my editor. The production began to pop up on other blogs, too, but, best of all, the marketing department at Penguin liked it and gave the trailer its own space on their Web page.
Honestly, I believe this justified every penny I spent.”
And according to this post on big bad book blog:
To distribute a book trailer, the publisher simply has to upload the trailer to the sites listed above; email friends, family, and targeted email lists; and ask them to view the video and vote. Publishers are sending trailers to bloggers to post on their sites as well. What other ways are publishers using boook trailers?
• On plasma screens at airport bookstores
•On their book’s Amazon.com page
•In email pitches to bookstore buyers and media
•In author press rooms
A feature on Amazon? A spotlight on a TV screen in a bookstore? Exposure to booksellers? A spot on the publisher’s website? Aha! I get it now. Combined with a snazzy video, this would sell books.
But how many of the trailers made actually get this kind of exposure? How many authors are educating themselves on all of these opportunities? My guess is that for many authors, the money they spend on a video is wasted because they don’t know how to or don’t manage to take full advantage of them.
When I asked her about it, promo savvy author Jackie Kessler shared her opinions and experiences with book trailers:
Why do trailers? A good trailer can get people excited about a book — just like a good trailer can get people excited about a movie, or about a television show.
“Wait,” you shout, “television and film are visual media, and books for adults aren’t. Apples and oranges!”
But why not cross media? Books get promoted on the radio and on television. So why not make book trailers? Especially in a world where author websites are essential, authors are already moving beyond words to include images andeven music (MySpace, anyone?) — so why not go the next step and do a trailer?
Done right, a trailer can really convey the **feeling** of your book –which, when combined with an excerpt and good reviews, may be enough to convince readers to buy the book. And it’s not just about readers: think about how an exciting trailer could inspire the sales force when they pitch
your novel to booksellers. (I am forever grateful to Toni McGee Causey (BOBBIE FAYE’S VERY (VERY, VERY, VERY) BAD DAY) for sharing this wisdom.)The trick is doing a trailer right. You don’t want a trailer to be too slow, or God forbid, too long. You don’t want to bore the viewer. And you don’t want to tell the whole story of your book. Again, you want to convey a feeling, make people excited about the book. To me, the right music is essential. And that needs to be paired with the right images and the right words.
Along with Toni’s live-action video trailer, I highly recommend Colleen Gleason’s trailer for THE REST FALLS AWAY. Brilliant stuff.
(By the way — if you’re making your own video, keep in mind that Shockwave doesn’t play nicely with YouTube.)
I asked Jackie about the distribution thing, wondering if she thought of the trailer mostly as a companion to the blurb and excerpt, something to spark extra excitement and interest in the reader. This was her response:
That’s how I see it. The combination of the trailer, plus reviews/blurbs and excerpts, may help potential readers decide whether or not to try the book.
And again, there’s the possibility of the trailer drumming up interest internally at the publisher. This happened to Toni McGee Causey, and I think it’s brilliant: give the trailer to your publicist, and let the publicist share it with the sales force.
Also, my local paper found my book trailer and blogged about it. Seriously.
In conclusion, to make a book video work for you, the author, I think it’s imperative that you either learn what to do with it or hire someone who can help. It needs to “wow” people and it needs distribution. Without those two factors, it’s highly unlikely that it’s worth it.
So, what do you think?
Readers, how do you feel about book videos? Have any of them made you buy a book? What works for you and what doesn’t?
And authors who do trailers, what are you doing to make sure your video gets exposure and works as the promotional tool it’s meant to be?
I’m looking forward to hearing your opinions!
Related posts:
From what I’ve seen, Book Trailers are an excellent marketing investment for authors who have an active Web Presence. If she has a website, a blog, MySpace, and routinely visits other blogs and such, she has a Web Presence. People know her and interact with her regularly on the Internet. If this is the case, she will know plenty of people with MySpace accounts or blogs or websites who are happy to post her Book Trailer. These places get lots of visiters who also like to pass the Book Trailers around, if they’re fun. We bloggers love ‘Fun!’
Never forget the Power of Word-of-Mouth! Or Mouse-Click! 
If an author does not have a Web Presence, my opinion is Book Trailers are a waste of marketing cash best spent elsewhere.
As a reader, I don’t care for book trailers. At all. I’ve seen a few good ones, but most of them are either too long or don’t even tell me what it’s about. I’d rather read the book blurb anyway and get right to the point. I’m sure there are plenty of people who enjoy them, but I’m just not one of them. Chances are, if I’ve stumbled on a book trailer on someone’s myspace page or website, etc., I was looking to buy their book anyway and a trailer isn’t going to sway me. If anything, they kind of annoy me b/c they tend to slow down the page load, lol.
Not a fan of book trailers.
Give me a book cover or a banner to quickly click on and get to some blurbs or excerpts. I’m buying a book, not a movie.
Also my current corporate client blocks anything with video. If the author is targeting working readers, he/she might think twice about it.
Hi, all,
I can chime in here because I produced a video for my last book, Until the Day You Die. I wanted something professional, not like the slideshows mentioned. So I went all the way, with live actors and several locations, and the result was spectacular (if I don’t say so myself
) It was, alas, too long at 4 minutes, but we also did a short version (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4021103046921794399). It was fun to do, but I don’t think it helped sales in the long run. Probably, as mentioned, I didn’t/don’t have the web presence necessary. I also assumed my publisher would post it at their website and get behind it. Wrong. And it didn’t make it into a major booksellers’ newsletter, which was one of the goals of doing the video.
Plus, there are so many book videos out there, most just so-so; it’s lost its novelty.
I’m sure there are readers who do enjoy watching them. I do, when they’re good. I think they will draw in younger readers who are visually oriented. But I’m not sure they are THE way to go in marketing our books. Just a fun addition if you want to take the time/money to make one, and then you’d better make it a good one. I think authors are feeling pressured to jump in, so they do what they can.
I’ll probably do a short one to introduce my new series, but not for every book.
Cheers,
Tina Wainscott
I like book trailers, which is odd since I’m not much of a TV person. But it’s always interesting to me to see how an author “sees” their vision of their book in pictures. And there have been book trailers that convinced me to buy a book–Colleen Gleason’s first book trailer did that.
Yesterday, I saw a trailer for a book I didn’t know much about before hand. Combined with the author’s post (not the blurb), I thought it was a pretty amazing marketing effort. (note, even though I work for Samhain I don’t have any investment, so to speak, in this particular book so I don’t gain anything by sharing the link).
http://samhainpublishing.com/blog/2008/01/29/strawberries-in-winter-new-release
Thanks for quoting and linking to my blog post on book trailers. I’d better point out, before someone else does, that a year after writing that post, I made a book video of my own. I also posted detailed instructions on my blog for authors who want to make low- or no-cost book videos.
I want to make it clear that my views on the efficacy of book trailers as marketing tools remain materially unchanged. I made my video for the creative challenge, not because I expected it to have a big impact on book sales. It’s true that for a “category” romance novel, my video had some nice exposure: in addition to logging well over 3,000 views at YouTube, GodTube, other video sites, it was embedded on 22 blogs (I gave away free books to bloggers who agreed to do that) and featured on the well-known publishing industry blog GalleyCat. I imagine all of that promo had to result in at least a few sales, but that’s not something I’ll ever be able to measure. So when people ask whether I’m glad I made a book trailer, my answer is yes. I hope it sold a few books, but even if it didn’t, the process was fun and it flexed my creative muscles.
I envy authors who have the time to make book trailers. There just aren’t enough hours in the day for me to learn how and to spend time sifting through tons of stock footage and stock music to prepare my own little movie.
The ones I’ve seen have been very creative, but none of them has ever made me buy a book. A gorgeous cover, an exciting well-written blurb, a great review or a recommendation from a fellow reader will make me buy a book.
[...] only thing I have today is Vibeke Courtney’s post at Romancing the Blog. I’ve mentioned before that I’ve only bought one book based on a video, the one I [...]
I don’t care for them in the distribution venues where I’ve seen them, primarily author websites and blogs. Videos are visual. A book trailer on television would get my attention, as would a video playing in a bookstore or big box store or even as part of the advertising before a movie in a theater.
Also, I too think they tend to have too much text and are too long. Give me a short, live action video in the right venue and I’ll be scrambling for a piece of paper to write down the name of the book or the author’s name. Other than that, I pass.
Book trailers are like liver and onions . . . you either like them, or you don’t!
Personally, I enjoy watching book trailers. At least one has made me go out and buy the book. I also enjoy book trailers with plenty of text, which gives me a better idea of the story than watching amateur actors stiffer than a starched collar recite dialogue. I like my visuals as mere accents to the story. Other people will feel differently. It’s okay!
Many authors are creating their own videos, which means it doesn’t cost them anything but time! But I do agree with one thing said – my next video will be a lot shorter than the first one was!
From a readers perspective I have to say I don’t care for book trailers. I will look at them but most of the time I am rolling my eyes
are giggling 
about the music or worse the pictures used for the characters. I just don’t care for them.
As an aspiring author I can see why some authors would use them. We do live in a technology world. We have e-books, myspace pages, facebook and websites not to mention our own blog sites. But that being said I still don’t think it is worth the hassle, money and time to do a book trailer.
I agree with Katie “if I’ve stumbled on a book trailer on someone’s myspace page or website, etc., I was looking to buy their book anyway and a trailer isn’t going to sway me. If anything, they kind of annoy me b/c they tend to slow down the page load”
Thank you, everyone, for your comments!
kimber, I think you’re probably on to something with the web presence thing. For an author that gets around a lot on the web, it’s definitely a good way of getting attention!
I’m glad I stopped in here today. Here I was worrying that I was missing a great marketing tool because I had no desire or time to create a trailer. I’m going to stop feeling guilty about it and go back to feeling guilty about not updating the other pages on my website often enough.
And as a reader, I never check out trailers. I only check out those of my friends so I can offer them kudos for doing work I’ve been avoiding.
Susan, I think you hit the nail on the head there. This has been my fear. From what I’ve seen, I’ve been suspecting that a lot of debut and midlist authors feel that they have to spend a chunk of their advance on a video or they’ll be missing out. And in a lot of circumstances, that’s just not true!
I don’t have the patience to sit and watch a book trailer. I read extremely fast, and in the seconds it takes the trailer to load, I could have read the blurb on Amazon and probably gotten a better sense of the book.
As an author, I don’t have the skills to make a decent trailer and don’t have the money to hire someone to do one for me, so I doubt it’ll be added to my promo repertoire any time soon.
I’m a sucker for an eye-catching cover, but I usually don’t bother to watch book trailers. Whether I’m online or in the store, I won’t read the blurb if I don’t like the look. I enjoy making a decision in a split second. Book trailers take away the…immediacy, I guess, or undermine my gut-level reaction to a cover. Maybe I don’t want to know too much. I don’t want to discover the book’s mysteries until I have it in my hands.
That said, it’s early yet. Perhaps trailers will become a more refined art, and an aquired taste.
Where are book trailers being played?
Bookstores, television, movie theaters, malls (on smart screens near bookstores), digital billboards and other out-of-home advertising.
How many of our trailers get picked up by bookstores?
Borders – 50%
Borders – 80%
Powells – 100%
How many of our trailers get picked up by online sites for CBS, NBC or other similar networks? About 80%
Which type of trailers get the best foot traffic? The actual book trailers that are live action. Not only have we done a survey of readers to find this out, but booksellers can tell you the same. I believe you’ll find a quote to that effect in the recent RWR Magazine.
Let’s take a look at some more solid facts.
75% of people who watch book trailers are female. The majority of people watching trailers look to fall into 2 priarily age groups. 50% are age 15 to 24 and then there’s a good percentage of viewers that are 44 – 54. Very interesting statistics.
Book Trailers are aimed primarily to potential readers. Traditional readers usually use traditional methods such as back cover blurbs, book cover, friend recommendation. Though enough traditional readers like them to make book stores take them as content, not co-op.
The appropriate length of a book video is dependant upon a number of things. Is it an ad or is it a viral video? In 2007 every video we created went viral. Most of our video are around one minute, maybe 1 1/2. Traditional readers want short, to-the-point video synopsis of a book. Potential readers (these readers are very vital to the health of the industry) prefer to feel entertained as opposed to informed.
Book video should be monitored for performance, utilization and effectiveness. Without all three you’re just not getting your monies worth.
You can find a blog at- http://futureperfectpublishing.com/ that talks a bit more about the analytics of it all for those who are interested.
And you can read some on the utilization of trailers as well as some basic instructions on how to put one together here-
http://booktrailers.blogspot.com/
This is a fantastic blog! I’m so glad I came across it!
Correction-
Borders – 50%
BNN – 80%
Powells – 100%
Sorry about the error in putting Border instead of BNN!
As a reader I don’t care for book trailers. I can read a back cover in five to ten seconds, max, so I’m usually getting impatient before even a thirty-second trailer is getting started. And especially when it’s just slideshow with a soundtrack, where the whole point seems to be to show me the blurb a line at a time, it’s a major snoozer.
I don’t usually care for web pages with music anyway, and if I run into one accidentally I go scrambling for the [Back] button, so putting a musical background on the cover blurb does nothing for me.
If some authors can afford to do or contract someone to do a full-up trailer that really is like a movie trailer, good for them. But I don’t see this as a useful marketing tool for anyone who’s not already expecting some pretty large sales numbers.
Angie
I actually found I liked the text/music/stills book trailers better than stock footage/voice. Jackie Kessler’s was really good. I think she did really well with the medium she had, while the footage/voice ones, to me, felt more amateurish. I think better to have an awesome text/stills trailer than a mediocre footage/ voice. I haven’t seen that many book trailers though, so I’m not necesarily a great indicator of anything. I prefer not to look at videos on the internet because they always take a minute or so to load.
As politically incorrect as it is, I found that, as an Australian, some of the American accents in the book videos put me off a little bit. If a book is only being released in the US, I doubt that’d cause a problem, but if its released internationally, some people might be put off.
I, as a reader, tend to like most book videos…when they give me something more than just the blurb on the back. If it is almost word for word with the blurb, it turns me off. Thank goodness there are some very creative people out there that do more!
As many of the traditional readers, I used to base my book purchases only on the cover, the blurb or on a friend’s recomendation. But because of book trailers, I have been introduced to “new” authors that I might not have otherwise have picked up. Deborah LeBlanc, Douglas Clegg, Susan Squires, and Cheryl Holt just to name a few.
Book videos will always be a matter of personal taste, but I do believe that they are geared to bring back the younger people from the constantly changing world of technology to the wonderful world of books.
I really enjoy book trailers from COS Productions. I go there to see what my favorite authors are coming out with. I love having a peek at whats in store…and it helps me complete my TO BUY BOOK LIST.
LOL! I felt the same way about book trailers until I saw the one for South Beach Chicas and it was so fabulous, I had to make one for my book. It was a lot of work but fun, too, and I’ve gotten a lot of praise and interest in my book because of the trailer. I think it works best when you can set the mood for the book with pictures and music combined, but with little writing or talking. It may also depend on the theme of the book.
[...] what an interesting post, Vibeke, and thought provoking discussion in the [...]
I tend to avoid trailers.
I thought it was just me, being barely post-Luddite and all, but I worried about imbedded viruses and such.
[...] on the heels Vibeke’s post about book trailers, my mind this month has turned toward promotion – specifically, how best to [...]
For me, a BIG problem w/ book trailers is that if they are done poorly, they’ll turn me OFF a book. I saw one recently where an SF author produced his own book trailer and the pace and music were a total clash imo to what the book is. I think he could potentially lose sales, because while the book cover screamed action SF, the trailer gave the opposite feel.
[...] Two perspectives on book trailers at Romancing the Blog. 11:08 pm comment [...]