Week 9, Book Trailers

I think Book Trailers were initially a neat idea. However, after having watched a bunch this week, I have come to the conclusion that they are/were an ineffective gimmick. First of all, are book trailers still even a thing? I had a hard time finding book trailers on YouTube from the past two years, but eventually did find some from the past couple of months. It seems they are used mostly for YA titles.
I did watch a lot of trailers. Many of them were very well made but I found them ineffective at making me want to read the book. Especially the ones that used actors to play out actual scenes from the book, making the book trailer look like it was for a movie, just made me want to see what that full-length movie would have been like. Perhaps it is effective with teen audiences.

If I were an author making a marketing plan for my book, I would skip the book trailer (even if it was a YA book). Instead, I would try to build an audience by sharing passages of the book and doing interviews. I always want to a read a book after hearing an author on NPR's Fresh Air. Reaching a teen audience would be a lot more effective using social media platforms not around when the book trailer gimmick first emerged, like Snapchat and Instagram.