Book trailers

by Jonathan Hopkins
3rd March 2013

Does anyone have strong views (or otherwise) on book trailers? For example, how many have trawled Youtube for them, are those you found any good and would they encourage you to try the book?

Replies

I generally find them too long to hold my interest, though the pro trailer for Bernard Cornwell's '1356' is good (and short).

A few US authors are producing what I can only describe as 'short films', which, even using amateur actors, must cost an absolute fortune unless you've plenty of friends with the right skills. I'm not sure I want to be 'told' what a character looks like before reading the book. And do we really need what is, in essence, a complete back page blurb?

@Victoria, if you'd care to look at my feeble effort just for a giggle, it's here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADaQsnmkc6M

You've done this sort of thing before so you'd find it easy to get a much more professional result. This was done just using Moviemaker and a bit of judicious cutting/pasting.

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Jonathan
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Jonathan Hopkins
03/03/2013

I agree with Terri.

Whenever I open the first page of a book, I relish the excitement of being able to imagine a whole new world and a whole new set of characters. I don't like to be able to picture someone else's interpretation of what I am reading.

I have found in the past, when some of my favourite books have been turned into films, I can never read the book again without picturing the film; it really ruins it for me.

If the cover looks good and the blurb interests me then that is all I need to pick up a book and read it.

However, I think this may change, and over time, as e-books become more popular and technology moves on, trailers may become the main way we find out about new books. Gone will be the days of walking into a bookshop, spying an eye catching cover, fingering the fresh pages and smelling the 'new book' smell. That'll all be replaced with an e-reader and a computer. (I so hope this is not the future!)

Maybe trailers work for some people, maybe people like to see a visual representation of what they can expect to read. Like all these things, it's all personal choice, however I am not one of the lovers of book trailers!

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Laura Lovelock
03/03/2013

I'm not keen on book trailers personally. So far I haven't seen any that are any good, also I buy book based on the blurb. If i can imagine it in my head clearly just from reading the blurb then it's more than likely I'll buy it. I like to formulate my own idea on what everything looks like and if I watch a book trailer , it takes that away and I'm stuck with it. Front covers and blurbs are what do it from me.

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