Book Trailers - Alive or Dead?

by Clare Langley-Hawthorne

It's a long weekend here and so I have taken time out of my 'be healthy' regime to be a bit piggy with brie, red wine, chocolate and, yes, kangaroo. The latter is very tasty even if it feels like you're eating the nation's favourite Skippy (believe it or not, kangaroo are actually 'culled' in many parts of Australia as vermin). The long weekend also means I've been slacker than usual in getting my post together...which means, in true procrastinator form, I have been surfing the web...


To my surprise I have been seeing something I haven't really noticed in a while...book trailers...yes, these have been sneaking back into my online world just when (to be frank) I thought they had died a natural death. 


Never having done one myself, I can't say I've ever really understood the value of a book trailer. The ones I have seen have been, by and large, stilted, strange, artificial affairs which have failed to raise much excitement in me - either as a reader or as a writer. I was also never really sure whether they actually sold books in the way that a trailer 'sells' a movie. So I was surprised when I saw a recent one and started wondering - is the book trailer back? Or maybe it never died?


Assuming an author can afford it, I imagine a clever, funny, professional looking book trailer provides an additional and potentially valuable marketing and publicity tool, even if, in its own right, it doesn't really sell many books. The key elements here are professional and clever - because, to be honest, some of the trailers I have seen have been embarrassingly amateur (especially when they try too hard to be like a movie trailer complete with ponderous, overblown narration). One I recall that made me laugh (and even contemplate buying the book) was a humorous spoof trailer for Sense and Sensibility with Sea Monsters but other than that most book trailers have drifted from memory like flotsam and jetsam...
But what do you think?

• Is the book trailer having a resurgence?
• Have you used a trailer and found it to be a successful marketing tool?
• Would you consider producing a book trailer for your current WIP? (and why or why not?)
• Has seeing a book trailer ever induced you to buy the book?