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Book Trailers: Love ’em? Hate ’em?

- - January 25th, 2010

Author Marc Laidlaw has been giving thought to trailers for books lately. And he has some problems with the way they’ve been done. And, he has some ideas for how they could be done differently.

Accordingly, he tries his skills on Jesse Bullington’s THE SAD TALE OF THE BROTHERS GROSSBART. See what you think.

What would you want to see, in a book trailer? (Besides a refreshing absence of spoilers….)

This entry was posted on Monday, January 25th, 2010 at 11:10 am and is filed under Orbit Australia, Orbit UK, Orbit US. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

  1. N. K. Jemisin

    January 25, 2010
    at 3:51 pm

    Yeah, I feel pretty much the same as Marc; ended up doing an audio trailer instead for that precise reason. (And I had just posted that on my site when I saw the link to this… serendipity.) I do like the idea of motion graphics, though those could get old after awhile.

    What I want to see in a book trailer are really good actors, who look and feel like the author’s description of the characters, dramatizing a scene from the book, in a setting that looks like what the book describes. I think that what a lot of authors forget is that if they’re going to use the film medium to advertise the book, then it needs to be a film, with all the elements of a good short film: a good script and/or storyboarding, good direction and timing, good set design, decent camera, and so on. But that’s not the kind of thing that can be done cheaply — at least, not well. And unfortunately, bad trailers make me think badly of the attached book.

  2. draconismoi

    January 25, 2010
    at 7:36 pm

    I would like to NEVER see a book trailer again. I utterly despise them in all incarnations.

  3. Andy Remic

    January 29, 2010
    at 9:04 am

    Haha, you should check out my films!!
    Yes, they’re bad, and yes, the acting sucks (after all, its me…) but hey, at least I made an effort :-)

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYutgPBO_aY

    Cheers

    Andy Remic

  4. Jaree Francis

    March 18, 2010
    at 1:08 pm

    One of the best trailers I’ve seen is for Leviathan. I agree with a lot of the points made. This is my second trailer for the novel Metra City: Destiny’s Kiss. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-M85VY5rsrc I’m open for feedback

    – Jay

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