The bond between books and film is complex. Of course you have your book-to-movie transformations—always somewhat hit or miss, depending on the people behind the film. The Oscars was replete with such films this year, really boosting book sales. You have you truly successful film adaptations, and your utter flops. A good adaptation can act as a great advertisement for the book—whether you see the movie and pick up the book at B&N on the way home from the theater or (if you’re like me) you see an intriguing movie trailer and endeavor to finish the book before the film comes out in theaters.
Now the book/film relationship has really been taken to the nest level: book trailers. With so many people with their eyes glued to the internet, surfing at light-speed from one website to the next gathering bites of info, book trailers seem like a very creative and logical step: short, audio/visual and available on YouTube. One need not read back covers or inside flaps or find descriptions on Amazon, just sit back and watch a preview of the book.
Do book trailers really work as a marketing tool for books? Hard to say. The concept is not yet a regularly used marketing tool; not every new book out there has a trailer (probably for the best). But some of them are quite creative. If you like book trailers, you can get a steady stream of them at Shelf Awareness. They post a link to a new trailer every day.
Just some food for thought. I mostly made this post because the trailers are my favorite part of going to the movies. Can’t say book trailers will ever be my favorite part of reading a book. But, like millions of people out there, I’m a sucker for the fleeting amusement of YouTube A/V bites and there are at least 40 video clips now linked to this blog post. Let the clip-watching marathon begin!
Also, dancing books!
Tags: barnes & noble, book trailers, oscars