Buy Or Don’t Buy

Remember when books were about reading? Remember when a new book came out, you were either told about it from a friend, or saw it in the local book store? Or read about it?  Well it turns out, reading about things you read is so web 1.0.

Last May, I read an article about a book trailer. A trailer! And while I thought Chuck Palahniuk’s trailer was a fluke of  edginess and not to become a trend, I was wrong.

Remember when the Harry Potter fans were outraged when Harry Potter was to become a motion picture series with claims saying that it ruined their imagined characters and worlds? Harry didn’t look like Daniel Radcliffe, Hermoine is “ugly” and frizzi-haired in the book. (I am not qualified to say much about that, because I never read the books… but back to the point.) Creating a trailer, limits the potential of what the characters look like, sound like, and other personal traits before the book is even read! The imagination limit is already created before the book is on the shelf.

I just have this sinking feeling, that video trailers are not the worse thing that the Internet is going to do to books. For example how about a “book” told on and through Google maps? Is it a book or a travesty? Or how about online contests to create a book trailer?! Am I just archaic? Or is this bullshit?

While doing some research for this post, I have categorized book trailers. For categorizations and trailers. Keep reading.

1. The “I-Hope-This-Becomes-Viral!” Book Trailer:
This is Palahniuk’s video. Note the use of sex, humor and awkwardness. (All key elements when overly designing a viral video hopeful.)

For the next video: Note the heart beat and the sense of urgency? It’s like watching an episode of 24 without the action, or the story, or the Republicans.

2. The “How-Can-I-Make-The-Internet-Work-For-Me” Book Trailer:
There are also a lot of book publishers that aren’t really sure how to make their products become a little more web 2.0. These videos are good at giving little to nothing away about the story, and use ridiculous graphics. They also avoid showing what the characters, settings, etc look like. They do it so the reader can imagine to their heart’s content. However, this also leads to a sucky promotional item. Here are a few I found that just makes you wonder why bother.

3. The “Discovery-Channel” Book Trailers.
This type is for non-fiction books. The trailers leave you for wanting more. They, in fact, make you want a whole half hour special on whatever the topic may be. These trailers are successful in a way because they make you want to know more, a whole special of more that would  be watchable (not necessarily readable) on A&E, or Discovery Channel or the beloved History channel. These are little more well produced and really seems to peak the a correct interest in the book from the video.

(As a side “buy”,  Buy: Jet-Packs)

For more trailers (especially from category two, check the blog: “Watch The Book” where I really feel they missed the point of books. Also, if I knew crappy video editing with New Times Roman text overlays was the thing of the future… I would have left high school and my Youtube account would be filled with these things.

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