Emdashery Blog

Dean Koontz Gets Free Videos--

Recently, I posted about talk radio host Hugh Hewitt soliciting video trailers for his book, A Mormon in the White House. This past month, bestselling author Dean Koontz did the same thing. He offered $5,000 to the producer of the best 30-second video for his upcoming book, The Good Guy.

The response? He received 65 videos. And he only had to pay for one. Not bad.

You can see all the videos here...

And here's one of the submissions...

Pond Scum: Where the covers talk--

This week's trailer is about the book Pond Scum by Alan Silberberg. Cute and simple...

Today's book trailer: The Colorado Sequence

As a collaborator and ghostwriter, I have the pleasure of talking with many aspiring authors. Unfortunately, many of the people I speak with will probably never get published. But even those who have great ideas face the challenge of getting their ideas noticed.

Most people think of book trailers as a new way of promoting a recently published book. However, given that the concept is still in its infancy, book trailers also offer a way to rise above the competing clutter and get noticed while an author is still seeking a publisher.

Author Stacy Cochran offers an example of this. In his YouTube introduction for his The Colorado Sequence book trailer, he writes:

My explicit audience for this particular trailer is literary agents, editors, and publishers. The implied audience may well include anyone interested in action-adventure novels or in learning about new authors. Feel free to leave comments, and pass it on to anyone you think my find it interesting.

For some of the graphics, he uses the "book" he already produced through Lulu.

It's about selling books--

The purpose of book trailers is to sell books. So you might as well be upfront about it and have a little fun.

This week's book trailer is by Dylan Schaffer who did both for his book Life, Death & Bialys: A Father/Son Baking Story.

Book Trailer Friday--

I've posted plenty of book trailers periodically on Emdashery. I'm going to make that more of a routine with a posting of an interesting book trailer every Friday. Sometimes, I can't find a good one, so we'll see how often I can make that happen. But I'm going to try...

Here's the first trailer, which is for Deadline by Chris Crutcher. It demonstrates that a trailer doesn't need to be long, complex, or expensive to get your point across. Sometimes brief works...

And speaking of Fridays, I'm jammed for the next several days, so next Friday will probably be the next time I post. As always, thank you for stopping by!

Medieval helpdesk--

Today, writers sometimes feel both excited and overwhelmed by the changes in technology. Present advancements are dramatically changing the many ways words are published. It's easy to think that this is a new development and to look back on the sweet and simple ways of the past. But the past was filled with its confounding changes as well. Just check out this video for proof...

(Thank you to Dale Moses for helping me find this video again...)

Getting someone else to do the trailer--

Radio personality and blogger, Hugh Hewitt has written a book about presidential prospect, Mitt Romney. The book is titled, A Mormon in the White House? 10 Things Every American Should Know about Mitt Romney. Hewitt is big fan of the potential of YouTube and recognizes the value of book trailers. But with name recognition and a loyal following working in his favor, he doesn't need to produce his own book trailer. Recalling that Doritos used an ad contest to allow amateur ad producers to make commercials for the superbowl, Hewitt is offering $1,000 to the person who can produce the best  trailer for his book.

Not a bad deal if it works. That's less than most book trailers cost, and he might get several good ones to boot. 

An About page in video form--

Yesterday, I posted a book video for Working with You Is Killing Me. The video was produced by VidLit, a company started by Liz Dubelman that creates book trailers using flash animation.

At the VidLit Web site, you won't find an About page. What you will find, of course, is a video explaining what VidLit is all about.

You can watch the video below, or you can see it at their Web site along with all the other videos they've produced.

A slow office death: the video--

Most authors today don't produce book trailers to help promote their new works, and of the book trailers that are produced, many are...well...boring. Too many authors are using YouTube videos to talk about their books in a drab monotone. So, I'm always on the look out for interesting book trailers.

Here's one for Working with You Is Killing Me by Katherine Crowley & Kathi Elster. It includes a quiz that must connect with 99% of office workers, thereby making the potential readership rather large. Today, I work for myself, and although my boss can be rather annoying at times, this video did conjure up memories of a few long ago co-workers who nearly drove me over the edge...

A comic book character does book promotion--

By day, he's a mild-mannered editor and author. But after hours, he answers to a higher calling--he's a comic book character. Many authors are starting to use video to promote their books, but too often, those videos are...well...boring. Not the case with David Zimmerman, or Zimmer Man, as his alter ego is known by.

You can check out his video here. I guess it is okay to have fun with book promotion, huh?

HT: Mark Goodyear at Goodword Editing