Sunday, December 25, 2011

The publisher of my novel (THE CIRCLE CAST) wants to do a book trailer. 60-90 seconds. What would you want in a 90 second trailer for a young adult novel about Morgan le Fay?

I'm thinking magic and hotness. You?

Labels: shameless self-promotion

11:57 PM

6 Comments:

To be honest, I haven't seen a book trailer that was worth the money. I could be wrong, but I think they're more or less useless.

By  Megazver, at 1:10 AM  

The Four Hour Body Book trailer was amazing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIVmsIJyj3A

By  JStarr, at 1:53 AM  

Well, okay, that one was alright. Forgot to clarify: for fiction.

By  Megazver, at 4:30 AM  

Great music, an active heroine, and a teaser bit of VO dialogue and/or exposition. Magic for sure. Hotness is less important than an invitation into the story, context that YA readers can engage with emotionally, can project themselves into.

THe Four Hour Body trailer works because it lets the viewer imagine herself lifting, running, jumping -- because it shows us the emotional run-up to those moments, not just the physical accomplishments. It asks us to imagine and believe.

Also, YA is chock full of magic these days, so use the trailer to differentiate the book from A) other magic-using books and B) other Arthurian era stories.

Good luck with the trailer!

By  Kelley Eskridge, at 1:00 PM  

By magic, do you mean green lightning bolts? Yawn. How would you show Morgan using magic in a way that reveals her character?

By  tnt, at 7:40 PM  

Check out this one for Agent 6: http://youtu.be/MlYnVbtYZqk

By  John, at 5:43 PM  

Post a Comment

Back to Complications Ensue main blog page.