Coming soon to a bookstore near you...

A few years ago at a romance writers conference, I remember dropping by the booth of a company that produced commercials -- or "book trailers" -- for fiction novels. The idea seemed cool, but I wondered who could afford to actually televise these things, let alone get one made?

I didn't think anything more about it.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago, when I was at my local writers group and we were discussing using MySpace to promote yourself as a writer. One of the author pages we visited had a book trailer on her page. Then last week, a local member forwarded a YouTube link for a group devoted to book trailers. Then the current Romance Writers Report (published by RWA) shows up a few days ago and it has an article on them.



What's changed in the past few years to suddenly make these book trailers proliferate? Evidently, YouTube and the Internet. Just follow some of the links in this blog entry, and you'll find a lot out there.

When I did a quick Google search, I found stories dating back to July on the subject.

On a screen near you ...
Read the book? No, but I loved the trailer
The Guardian
Publishers have finally tapped into the MTV generation, and now it is possible to make your literary choices in advance online by watching a sequence of rapid-fire images accompanied by a thumping score, big flashing words and, if you're lucky, a deep-voiced American talking about 'one man' and 'his quest to find meaning in a world gone mad'. Yes: there are now trailers for books.

View to a Thrill
Book trailers: building hype, movie-style
CBC
HarperCollins has produced close to a dozen trailers since early February. ... And ... Consumer interest in them “has far, far exceeded what we expected.”

Book publishers go online with video
Associated Press
With book sales bleak and video sites exploding, publishers big and small are producing short videos – “book trailers” – and posting them online to reach audiences beyond the book review.

Book Videos: Where Did They Come From?
The Book Standard
It’s time to get the dirt on book videos and prepare to learn even more.

Book trailers and the Internet seem like a good match. It'll be interesting to watch if this trend grows, and if it really makes a difference in a book's sales.