Authors Promote Reading Visually

Book covers and back copy isn’t the only thing bringing readers to books.  Book Trailers, which look like movie trailers but show the story of a book, have taken a front seat in getting people to read for entertainment.

The idea of Book Trailers, or book videos, started in 2002 when an American company, Circle of Seven Productions created a video for popular author Christine Feehan. They began a campaign to entice authors and publishers to consider a visual medium to stir the public into reading and buying books.

People have evolved into visual creatures and demand more high-tech means to hold their interest.  Video previews to music CDs, video games, movies and TV shows have worked for years, but the book industry didn’t have a mechanism outside of a book commercial which was more or less a static picture of the book and the release date. With the new YouTube Generation commercials like that were not going to work for anyone. Something more exciting had to entice them.

The idea of visually showing people what the book’s story is about took time to catch on.  By 2006 sites like MySpace and YouTube offered more online distribution potential and the utilization of the book videos became more apparent.  Borders Group, which owns Borders and Waldenbooks, started playing the book videos on their site and now have a dedicated page for them.  Barnes and Noble have had author interviews on their site for years, but they started taking in the entertaining book videos this year and play them next to the book on their site so readers can “try before you buy” by watching the video.  Now Amazon.com has caught on and recently started showing book video on their site as well.  With the support of booksellers and the public book video has become a main staple in the marketing place for books.

You can find more examples of book video on the Circle of Seven website, YouTube, MySpace, iFilm and other social networks that allow user generated video uploads.