FollowWhat John Yunker from Ashland Creek Press said in class “If you can write and have something to say, you will do well in life,” resonated with me too. I felt that it was more than a distant possibility that I could get my ideas ‘out there’. Getting published was suddenly tangible. I have access to all the same social networks. I have an expanding knowledge of how to be creative in the digital world. But everyone else can also see the vast opportunities that are possible on the internet for voicing your piece. The internet is almost overly accessible. The question arises, “How will anyone find my voice, my needle in a haystack, amongst all this s#*t?”
Midge Raymond and John Yunker introduced, at least to me, the idea of book trailers. Their trailer, Love in the Time of Amazon.com ignited a series of ideas that make getting noticed online plausible. I became curious about what kinds of book trailers my favorite authors created. I imagined them being a bit more like a movie trailer than the example Ashland Creek Press showed our class. There is quite a variety of approaches to book trailers, and companies like Circle of Seven Productions specialize in creating book trailers for authors and publishers (at a cost of course). Here are some of their selling points for their book video marketing package:
- Book trailer and online distribution
- Social Media Promotions, including YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and MySpace
- Online Marketing to multiple platforms, including blogs, video sites, social media and bookmarking sites
- Promotions to portable devices such as Wii, PSP, iPhone and other mobile phone devices
- Video submission to media sites for broadcast
- Online distribution of book video to reader sites including GoodReads, Watch the Book and Bookscreening.com
- Aggressive Online Outreach to Genre Specific Sites
- Online distribution of book videos to over 5000 libraries
- Online distribution of promotional material to over 300 booksellers
- Multi-venue online promotions including social sites, media sites, reader destination sites and blogs
The internet has added multiple layers of complexity to what writing is as a profession. I only follow one well-known author on Facebook, Neil Gaiman. His was the first book trailer I watched; Instructions was written and read by Neil Gaiman and illustrated by Charles Vess. It was not what I expected. I expected the book trailer to be a teaser. I thought the author would not divulge the entire story, but he does. I love it, and the trailer doesn’t detour me in the slightest from wanting to have my own copy of the book. It’s about four minutes long, but worth it.
