Book Trailers

For my Book Marketing class this term, I’ve decided to create a book trailer. I’m one of those people who always wants to be at the movies early so I won’t possibly miss any of the trailers, because I really like trailers and I am often impressed by how they are cut and manipulated from the movie footage to show just enough of the story to be intriguing.

My trailer will be for the YA book The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley. This is one of my top five favorite books, and definitely my favorite McKinley book, though Spindle’s End and Beauty are also amazing (especially if you, like me, enjoy the retelling of fairy tales).

So I wanted to get an idea about how to do a book trailer. I looked at several, including The Graveyard Book , The Hunger Games, and The Lightning Thief.

From what I can tell, the best book trailers do the following:

1) Don’t usually show real people. I’m guessing that this is to distinguish the book trailer from movie trailers, to not hinder people’s imaginations, and to make production costs less.

2) Flash the cover of the books repeatedly. This is to make sure that people will remember the cover and buy it when they see online or in stores.

3) Offer much more text to read than movie trailers. Sometimes this text is also narrated, but sometimes there is just epic music.

I even found this site, which will probably help me: How to Create the BEST Book Trailer EVER.

Now, I will start storyboarding. Wish me luck!

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Maureen’s Morning Report

I really like how Publisher’s Weekly has a Morning Report, so I’ve decided to do my own with stories that have caught my attention recently.

Amazon is not going to set prices of e-books!! This is great news for publishers, as the recommended e-book price by Amazon was $9.99 which was not enough. Publishers put so many man hours into a book, with editing, design, and marketing that it doesn’t matter that the books isn’t actually printed. The book is still expensive. And $9.99 doesn’t cover that. But the new suggested price of $14.99 is better and, really, what matters is that publishers will get to set the price instead of Amazon. Amazon wants low e-book prices to sell the Kindle, and doesn’t seem to care about the long-term consequences for the publishing industry. To see specific stories about the negotiations between Amazon, Hatchette, Penguin, Simon & Schuster, and Macmillan, Galleycat is a great source.

I don’t have a Kindle or an iPad, and probably won’t get one until their prices drop a little (grad students have big chunks of money to burn, sadly) but I’m really excited to see how comic books use this new technology. Apparently there’s already an iPad application for comic books, and each issue will be $2. There aren’t many titles right now, but the future looks bright. I know a couple comic book collectors, though, and I’m not sure how they will react – there will no longer be comic books to thumb gently through before trading them with friends to exclaim over their rising price as a collectible. For more information about the technology available and the advantages of digital comics, see this article in Digital Book World.

Just like I’ve been saying here in this blog, people are confused about the iPad: they have no idea why anyone would spend that much money on a device that basically does the same things as a laptop. Right now, at least, I think only real techno geeks are going to be lining up for this one. Maybe when the price drops, the redundancy of function won’t matter as much.

And, since I’ve been talking about indie bookstores, I wanted to include this shout out to the McNally Jackson Cafe by Front Studio. They have remodeled, and it looks great. The wall paper looks like books, there are book hanging from the ceiling, and apparently the new cafe menu is full of food-related quotes. I don’t usually include stuff about places in New York, but this is exactly the sort of great innovation I wanted to encourage with my blog post about ideas/hooks for indie bookstores.

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Why Self-Publish? Wideman Answers “Why Not?”

There’s been a lot of discussion about whether self-publishing is better or worse than publishing through more traditional channels. So I thought it was interesting that prominent author John Edgar Wideman has decided to self-publish his new book Briefs: Stories for the Palm of theMind with Lulu.

Wideman has won several awards, and was a National Book Award finalist. Currently, Briefs is only available through Lulu, but will be released with an ISBN in a few weeks. When asked why he self-published, he answered, “Why not?” Which is a really great answer coming from an author who is already established and tenured.

But what about the people who haven’t been published before? What incentives does self-publishing offer? Not many right now, honestly, but perhaps if other big name authors decide to self-publish there will be less of a stigma about self-published books being the works only of authors who couldn’t find a “real” publisher. It would be great if that was the result of Wideman’s break from the norm.

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Borders is still ALIVE

I’ve been following the story of Borders’ seemingly imminent financial ruin in this blog. So I was surprised/glad/frustrated when I read the company has found new financing. I was surprised because I can’t imagine anyone wanting to back such a risky investment. Glad because I like Borders and know several people who work there. Frustrated because I don’t think Borders’ higher-ups know anything about selling books! Therefore three years, or any amount of time, won’t be enough to save the store. But until Borders finally kicks the bucket, I will enjoy their Seattle’s Best Coffees and Bargain Books.

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Publisher Branding

Publishers market their books all the time, but I was thinking that a lot of publishers do notmarket their brands as much as they could. I am very loyal to authors that I like, but oftenI don’t pay much attention to the publisher.

But sometimes I do – and sometimes many other people do too. Which means that publishers should really be taking advantage of this consumer weakness: we are lazy and like to go with the same brands for most of our goods.

For example, I really like Chronicle Books because they are well-made, beautiful books. For chick lit and romance, I like Avon (an imprint of HarperCollins), and for fantasy I like Firebird.

The fact that I can name three publishers off the top of my head, despite the fact that I don’t pay that much attention, means that some publishers have been successfully branding. But others aren’t and therefore should read this very helpful article. Basically, if publishers were better about branding their companies, they wouldn’t have to work so hard to market their books – the brand would do it for them.

You don’t remember the most recent Kleenex ad, but you know you want Kleenex when you’re at the store. Publishing could be the same. So instead of saying, “I want the newest Robin McKinley,” I’d be saying, “I want the lastest Firebird” – and everyone would know what I was talking about.

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Book Covers – A Thing of the Past?

I took a Design class last term, and I designed several book covers that I am very proud of. Here’s one I did for the Sherlock Holmes novel A Study in Scarlet:

So, having more recently acquired this skill and an appreciation of what book cover designers actually do, I was very sad to read this article in the The New York Times entitled “In E-Book Era You Can’t Even Judge a Cover.” This article discusses how hard it will be for others to view our books if we are all reading them in electronic format (i.e. all Kindles and eReaders look the same!) But the article also talks about how important book covers can be to sales.

I am increasingly aware how awesome e-books can be, but isn’t book design another art? Looking back at books from hundreds of years ago, aren’t they beautiful pieces? Illumination, paper of vellum, and even more recent designs like those drawings seen, for example, on the Percy Jackson books. I would hate to see this art form disappear.

I realize that some books will still have covers in e-format, but when all the books have to cost $9.99 (thanks to the new agency system), this seems like an area where publishers will cut costs. So how many won’t have covers? And how many designers will hang their heads and cry when they realize they only get to design blocks of text? 😦

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Chick Lit IS Women’s Lit

First of all, let me say that I know some people don’t know what the definition of chick lit is. I think this is the simplest explanation I’ve found (thanks, Wikipedia!): “Chick lit is genre fiction within women’s fiction which addresses issues of modern women often humorously and lightheartedly.”

I really like chick lit, and like the definition states – it is women’s lit. A lot of women seem to see chick lit as the middle ground between romance and literary fiction, and this makes sense to me. But just because it’s not the most literary genre ever doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy it!

This article talks about how chick lit has fallen out of disfavor, partly because it is too “fluffy.” Who cares if it’s fluffy? I like genre fiction, INCLUDING romance books, and I think if we relate to the female characters in chick lit we should just accept that it’s lack of literary depth might, in fact, be the reason it’s the best thing to read when we’re tired and stressed. After a long day, you won’t see me reading James Joyce.

So, the spirit of embracing chick lit as women’s lit, here’s a couple book recommendations:

1. Bookends by Jane Green
2. Little Earthquakes by Jennifer Weiner
3. Bitter is the New Black by Jen Lancaster
4. Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin
5. Just Friends by Robyn Sisman

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Project Gutenberg

Since I’ve been talking so much about e-books, I wanted to give a little plug for one of my new favorite sites: Project Gutenberg.

For all of you have Sony e-Readers, Kindles, or even just a computer or phone, this site offers free e-book downloads on a ton of books that are public domain. Public domain means no one owns them (usually because they are older), which translates to free! Lots of classics are on this site, including Sherlock Holmes, Alice in Wonderland, Little Women, and Emma. There are even some books of poetry.

If you haven’t already, check it out.

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