Book Videos Redux

In our endless drive to promote books and incorporate the "new media", one of the most unusual yet logical things to come out of the scramble would be book videos. As do so many things, they began as a small press sensation before they trickled up to the big NY houses. Now, books like Sherri Kenyon's Acheron, upon its recent release, are getting trailers that look like they're for real movies. There are awards for book videos, chats about book videos, sites for book videos, classes for book videos, people you can hire to create book videos, you name it. You can pay thousands upon thousands for a book video and you can do them yourself for pocket change.

(The current advice, of course, being you shouldn't homegrow your video or you look like a rank amateur, same as for websites, promo photos, marketing materials, publicity campaigns, and so many other things most authors can't afford to pay somebody else to do.)

(But it's an investment! It takes money to make money.)

(Can't get blood out of a turnip. First the kids eat, then we pay for gas, then mortgage and electricity, and then I have five bucks left over to buy...I don't know, probably some ibuprofin. Generic.)

(You're obviously not serious about your career if you aren't willing to invest the money into putting a professional foot forward.)

(And YOU obviously.... Wait a minute. Who am I talking to?)

(I am not sure, but I'll quit now. This is kind of psychotic.)

Book videos also tend to be -- not always, but sometimes -- on the dark and dramatic side since the medium lends itself to that. But what if you don't WRITE dark and dramatic? What do you do if you want a book video then?

Something like this, I guess. Dark and dramatic, I am not. Plump in the pocket to pay someone else to do it, I am not.



Show the gnomes some love, man! What are your favorite non-dark and non-dramatic book videos? Do you homegrow or farm it out?

Jody Wallace
http://www.jodywallace.com/