Ireland's a Book Lover's Paradise

Tip of the Day: if planning a trip to Ireland, be sure to take in all the book-related items. And maybe even stop in at the Writer's Museum!

Just got back early this morning from a brief visit to Ireland. As most of the trips I make, I like to know as little about the destination as possible and prefer to wing it, since it seems more enjoyable to me. Before this trip, I had no idea Ireland was so proud of their literary heritage (almost as much as their Guinness!). About all of our tour guides had much to say about one of the great writers of Ireland from James Joyce, Jonathan Swift, Oscar Wilde, and many more. And even more people went on about tales of two of the biggest selling books of all time that both started in Ireland: Dracula and the Guinness Book of World Records (I had no idea this book started as a bar bet on what bird was the fastest).

Then there were visits to Marsh's Library where readers were locked in wire alcove's to prevent stealing of rare books, and the impressive Trinity College Library that not only houses the Book of Kells, which is over 1,100 years old, but has more than 200,000 old books that were all categorized based on book size (how would you like to find a book in there!) and no other way.

So with all the literary talk, I had to visit a contemporary bookstore to see not only what was happening, but to compare it to U.S. bookstores.


*Interestingly almost all the books also published in the U.S. had similar covers, or slightly varied covers with only a different font or slight differences in the book cover image.


* Paranormal books seem to be just as popular in Ireland. Though I'm not surprised, given how many people mentioned Dracula.


*I recognized almost all the books, only a few looked to be published only in Ireland or other parts of Europe.
* The bookstore layout was very similar to U.S. bookstores. One of the things I noticed though was that 99 percent of the books in the stores were paperback.



* Here's another bookstore, which had a slightly different look, but still loved the Twilight books.

--Emily, Miss Querylicious

My New Writing Hero: Wocka Wocka Wocka

Tip of the Day: My favorite hand cream to keep on my desk has always been Bath and Body Works antibacterial, but someone gave me Ulta hand cream and it's working a lot better for me than I would have imagined. Yay good hand cream.

Lately I've been feeling a little worn out about my writing, like I'm slogging through the swamp. That's why I have a new writing hero for inspiration.

Fozzie Bear! (Cue music: da da da DA da da DAAA!)

My kids have been watching old Muppet Show episodes. They're irresistible. Gonzo was my favorite growing up because I felt like a weird kid. But Fozzie, now, he won't stop working on his craft. No matter what! Everyone in the world can criticize him, he just keeps going.

Yeah, Statler and Waldorf, it's easy to criticize!

You'd think with all that heckling, Fozzie would stop asking for ways to improve, but no. He asks Kermit for a list of his good points and bad points.

Fozzie (reading list): Oh, no! You don't ... well, I guess I could see how you could think that. Okay, okay, I can improve this. Show me the good points now.

Kermit: Uh, those were the good points.

So when you're feeling heckled and wondering if anyone will ever get your jokes, when you feel like you've revised the "Good grief, the comedian's a bear!" sketch twenty times over and it's still not reading right, when you feel like giving up because what you thought was great just isn't and you're afraid to find out what people think of what you thought was merely good ... go watch the Muppet Show.

Aw, I think I want to buy a Fozzie teddy bear to hug now.

-- Kate, Miss Perfecting the Pages

My thoughts on book trailers

Tip of the day: Girl scout cookie time! I hope to get some this weekend from a troop selling at a local grocery store. My favorite are the Samoas. Mmmmm.

The problem with doing a week of "favorites" of something is that by the time we get to Friday, often all of my favorites have been mentioned.

So, I'm going to do something a little different. But first, my thoughts on book trailers. I was fortunate this time around in that my publisher decided to do one for CHASING BROOKLYN. They used a company that doesn't just *make* the video, but has a plan of distribution, and posts it to a ton of different sites. I really think that's key, but of course, you pay more for that kind of thing.

Is a book trailer necessary for a book to be successful? No. Does it help sell a book? That's the big question, isn't it? I think the verdict is still out. However, it's done well, and people decide to post your trailer around the internet, I do think it can bring some attention to your book it wouldn't have gotten otherwise. But if I had to rank things by importance, I'm not sure I would give a book trailer that high of a rating. I think there are lots of other things that are probably more effective for promoting your book.

Now I'll show you a couple of MY favorites. Here are a couple of trailers done by fans of I HEART YOU, YOU HAUNT ME. They read the book, and felt inspired to make a video.

How cool is THAT???

~Lisa, Miss Crafting a Career

Book Trailers: I just can't decide!

Tip of the Day: If you haven't had the pleasure of watching Lara Zielin's Editing Letter music video, check it out now!

I keep struggling with whether or not book trailers are worth it. If you're savvy with moviemaker software and you're going to do it yourself and it's no biggie then sure, ok give it a chance. Every little bit helps. Or if you're a bestseller (or on your way to being a bestseller--like your publisher is throwing big giant piles of cash at promotion for your book) then ok, I can see putting some money behind a book trailer. Theory being that people may already be hearing the buzz on your book and want to find out more. Like the booktrailer for Hush, Hush that Em pointed out on Tuesday. Awesome book trailer, gets right to the drama, cool graphics, good music, and under a minute. But it had to cost a fortune. I looked at the price sheet for the company that made that video and to get moving graphics like she had put it easily in the $2000 range. Wise investment? For her I can see it. She's a NYT bestseller. The video has had over 42,000 hits. That's amazing! BUT, do I think that people stumbled upon her video and THEN went looking for the book? Nope. I think people heard the buzz either before the book came out or once it came out (and this book had loads of great buzz!), maybe even read it already, and THEN looked for the video. Of course, this is just what I think. Do you agree or disagree?

For me? I almost never look at booktrailers. I will look at my friend's booktrailers once I see them post on their blog that they are up but that's about it. And I was going to buy their book anyway so does that even count? Do teens really search youtube looking for booktrailers and then go buy the books? I'd LOVE to know this. I really think it's the buzz that comes first. And if you don't have the heavy promotion behind you creating a buzz then I think your trailer has to be super super creative & clever to create the buzz. Take Simone Elkeles's Perfect Chemistry. Everyone, and I mean everyone, was talking about her trailer when it came out. And it's super cute. I would totally go get the book after seeing this. It's not straight up GO BUY MY BOOK NOW as much as it is entertaining and fun. And take Lara Zielin. She is freaking hysterical! But her youtube videos aren't really booktrailers. They are more super funny entertaining videos that subtly show her book. Like this one. And, to take a look at another super creative book trailer, look at Jessica Brody's trailer for her book Karma Club coming out in April. It plays like a mini-movie and has already received loads of hits since it came out a week or so ago.

And let me throw out another question to our readers, what ages are book trailers really for anyway? Loads of YA authors make them so I assume that means the target audience is 12 and up. But are they popular with adult fiction too? I haven't heard of adults looking at booktrailers before making a purchase. And what about middle grade? I have a middle grade novel coming out in August and it targets ages 11-14. Would kids that age watch book trailers? (p.s.-- just got my ARCs! Peek at them on my blog.).

Kristina, Miss See Me on the Shelves

YouTubeage (or Video Killed the YA Book Star*)

*With apologies to The Buggles

Tip of the Day: Use the time you spent watching the Olympics to work on your writing project this week. Or to catch up on the programs you missed while watching the Olympics....

Overall, I enjoy some book trailers once I watch them, but my time is precious so I only click on a link to watch a book trailer if:
a) I know the author
or
b) it gets tons and tons of positive buzz online.

That doesn't mean I might not enjoy book trailers that I'm not compelled to watch; just that I don't often watch them. In order to find a book trailer to call one of my favorites for this blog entry, I went to YouTube, searched for "YA Book Trailer" and watched a bunch -- I wasn't even aware of most of these trailers until I did a search. As a YA Librarian, I'll add that I have never bought or recommended a book bc of a book trailer I'd seen. As an author, I think it'd be fun to have a book trailer. All this I only point out to say:



a) anyone who bothers to make a trailer for their book should look for creative ways to get them noticed (especially after all that hard work!)

and

b) librarians like to play online so finding ways to get their attention with book trailers could lead to more word of mouth views.


Of those that I do watch, there are some aspects that I enjoy more than others:
a) I prefer still shots with text to read over live action with vocals (perhaps bc I want to mimic a novel-reading experience instead of a movie-watching experience?)
a1) and the text needs to change quickly bc it doesn't take 5 seconds to read 5 words
b) I prefer 60 seconds or less to those over a minute (like with any commercial, it needs to get to the point quickly; the shorter the better though I know it's hard to find any book trailers 60 seconds or less)
c) I prefer powerful background music to background sound effects (voices, bells, sirens, etc.)

So, based on my own personal book trailer likes -- and based on the story being told as well, which can't be ignored -- here's one of my favorite YA book trailers. Enjoy!

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

What do you like or dislike about this trailer? Would you do one for your book?

Deena, Miss Subbing for Pubbing

Be Creative with Book Trailers

Tip of the Day: if you want to make your own booktrailer, don't forget to get all the rights or permission to use any songs, images, etc.

I'm going to be completely honest in saying that I don't watch many book trailers. As a librarian, I find most of my books through other avenues, such as review journals, book review sites, friends, etc. But I think book trailers are an awesome idea, especially to appeal to teens and tweens. If you friend a teen on Facebook and post a video, they are likely to look!

In the book trailers I have seen, there are a few things that appeal to me the most:

• Short
  
• Too-the-point
• Creativity
• Not revealing too much information
• Not showing too many images that I can't form my own when reading the book
  
• And music (which Kate already touched on yesterday)

There's nothing that I hate more than watching a movie trailer, then going to the theater and realizing that every good part was shown in the trailer. In fact, I try to avoid a lot of movie trailers now as a result of this trend. When they come on during the previews, I get the basic information, then I close my eyes so I don't see too much. And when I do manage to peek through, I've gotten really good at determining which movies have revealed too much in the trailer and as a result, I'm probably not going to fork over $8 to see it in the theater.

Book trailers work the same way for me. I only want a teaser. I don't want all the information, or even that much information. Just basic info to get me interested.

Like this trailer for Hush, Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick. It doesn't give too much away, opens with a great image of someone falling, has great music to fit the theme, and it doesn't show a ton of images that I can't decide how I want the character to look myself or the town to look when I'm reading (which is one of the reasons I personally read over watching movies).

I also believe that everyone is capable of making a book trailer that works, so you don't have to spend tons of money by hiring a production company to make one if you don't want too or don't have the funds. There's lots of inexpensive and even free movie making software out there, and if you spend a few hours learning about the software, you can make one yourself. Or maybe you could find a local film school or even high school to make one for you. We are doing a short clip for a book at my library and the high school students are going to make it for us as a school project.

Basically get creative. They can still be really simple, though, such as this one for Sarah Dessen's Along for the Ride, which only uses animated text. Or this one from Meg Cabot in which she basically just talks about the book. They both do the job of telling you about the book. And really for me that's all I need.


--Emily, Miss Querylicious

Book Trailers: It's All in the Soundtrack

Tip of the Day: The deadline for materials to ARRIVE for the SCBWI work in progress grant in March 15.

More and more authors are making book trailers to promote their novels, and I think it's a good thing. A book trailer can make me more willing to pick up a book than I might have been before I watched it. I found this out when we did some Author2Author scoping out of book trailers for this week's post series on book trailers. The question we asked is: what works in a trailer and what doesn't?

After watching a few trailers, I found what really makes a trailer resonate with me is the music. The music should recreate the tone and mood of the novel.

What kind of novel is it? Emotional and haunting, like Lisa's CHASING BROOKLYN? Then the trailer features modern classical music that is also emotional and haunting. The trailer for BEAUTIFUL CREATURES by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl uses modern classical music that's straight up creepy. I like it!

So then I got curious as to what kind of music a light rom-com novel might use in a trailer. How about the trailer to PROM KINGS AND DRAMA QUEENS by Dorian Cirrone? This alt-pop music is totally upbeat and energetic, which fits the story. I've already read this novel and enjoyed it, but it seemed to me that the trailer gave away too much of the plot. I prefer trailers that convey the mood better.

Here's an example of a trailer for a humorous novel: INTO THE WILD NERD YONDER by Julie Halpern. This trailer is so different than the others. It uses animated drawings instead of still pictures, and the music is electronica! Cool! I've seen this novel in the library, but it has a very busy hot pink cover and didn't look appealing. But after seeing the trailer, I'm much more intrigued and plan to pick it up.

So if you're making a book trailer, think MUSIC! Whether it's pop, electronica, or haunting violins, that music will tell me what I can expect: high energy fun, modern tech, or a good scare. I'd love to know how people pick out the music for their trailers.

-- Kate, Miss Perfecting the Pages