The Rise of the Book Trailer

OK at the risk of sounding totally out of touch with 21^st century book culture, I hereby announce I have never read an ebook and I don’t own an ereader. Yes, yes I know, where have I been?

I appreciate all the advantages ebooks give the modern reader, ease of storage and transport of thousands of titles; cheaper access to new books the ability to increase font size for the visually impaired etc…. I just don’t want those advantages enough to give up the physical reality and tactile pleasure of print on paper.

However one aspect of the ebook revolution does inspire me and this is the book trailer. Publishers and authors have been creating small videos to promote new books since the early noughties and they bring the visual pleasure of the traditional book cover into the digital age.  With the seeming decline in physical bookshops the opportunity for publishers to reach readers and market their wares is disappearing.  Book trailers have started to fill that space. They vary in quality and the content ranges from the author statically reading sections of the book to elaborate multimedia presentations complete with animations and music score. In an article from The Guardian, Lindsay Irvine asks whether book trailers are useful and suggests how they may change the very nature of the book as we know it.

Google ‘book trailers’ and you’ll find any number of sites specialising in providing a space for authors to post promotional ‘vids’ many of which give some stunning teasers to the content.  BookTrailers for Readers is a wiki created by teacher-librarian, Michelle Harclerode which contains many professional and student produced book trailers of children’s and YA fiction. Book trailers are being used to promote adult fiction and non-fiction as well but the obvious attraction of the book trailer is to encourage people to read more.

Author A.J Walkley gives some insight into the benefits of book trailers to authors in her blog on Huffington Post.

I’d be interested to hear comments from those who use ereaders and their experience with book trailers. Do you use them to select your next read?