Video publicity the newest trend in the literary world – By Melinda Carroll
How many hours a day do you spend watching videos on youtube.com or movie trailers online? With millions of people tuning in… clearly video makes a difference.
Poets and Writer’s magazine reports that the literary world is jumping on the video bandwagon.
“Taking their cue from the film industry, in which a well-produced trailer is infinitely more valuable than a print advertisement or press release, commercial publishers such as HarperCollins and Houghton Mifflin are taking advantage of new technology to offer promotional videos on their web sites to augment their traditional publicity campaigns.”
(Check out HarperCollins Digital Media Café with downloadable videos).
“VidLit Productions (www.vidlit.com) in Santa Monica, California, has created promotional videos for publishers such as Penguin, Random House, and Bard Press, and uploads them to its own web site as well as more than seventy-five others, including YouTube. The book trailers, or VidLits, as they are called, can also be accessed using mobile devices such as iPods and video cell phones. “There’s no barrier to distribution,” says VidLit founder Liz Dubelman.”
(Read the full article)
Video is not new to Noveltown. With Noveltown’s Zowietown video productions and videos uploaded to Noveltown’s blog Paperback Writer; Noveltown’s been promoting Bakersfield’s music, art, theatre and film scenes for a while now. Book trailers or VidLits is a natural evolution in video for Noveltown.
Poets and Writer’s magazine reports that the literary world is jumping on the video bandwagon.
“Taking their cue from the film industry, in which a well-produced trailer is infinitely more valuable than a print advertisement or press release, commercial publishers such as HarperCollins and Houghton Mifflin are taking advantage of new technology to offer promotional videos on their web sites to augment their traditional publicity campaigns.”
(Check out HarperCollins Digital Media Café with downloadable videos).
“VidLit Productions (www.vidlit.com) in Santa Monica, California, has created promotional videos for publishers such as Penguin, Random House, and Bard Press, and uploads them to its own web site as well as more than seventy-five others, including YouTube. The book trailers, or VidLits, as they are called, can also be accessed using mobile devices such as iPods and video cell phones. “There’s no barrier to distribution,” says VidLit founder Liz Dubelman.”
(Read the full article)
Video is not new to Noveltown. With Noveltown’s Zowietown video productions and videos uploaded to Noveltown’s blog Paperback Writer; Noveltown’s been promoting Bakersfield’s music, art, theatre and film scenes for a while now. Book trailers or VidLits is a natural evolution in video for Noveltown.
Labels: Bakersfield, Digital Media Cafe, HarperCollins, Houghton Mifflin, Literature, magazine, Noveltown, Paperback Writer, Poet's and Writer's, Publicity, Trend, video, VidLits, Zowietown
This entry was posted by N.L. Belardes, on
Wednesday, February 21, 2007.
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Hey there hasn't been any Zowietowns lately. I miss those!
It's a great idea, but writers need to remember that most can't read expressively for shit and only make their book sound boring. (You'll see what I mean if you watch a handful of those lit clips.) It's probably worth that extra step to get an actor to do the reading.
Susan is definitely correct that most writers can't read out loud very well. Lucky for me, reading is easy, although the best reader I have ever seen was a Bakersfield radio DJ named Puck who read an excerpt from my novel... Comedian John Wessling is a hilarious reader...
I've been dragging my feet with Hectic Films--a great couple of guys who are working with me to make some lit commercials. Well, they're waiting on me, anyways...
I just called Rickey and said, "I know. It's all my fault..."
Hey N.L., are you talking about someone reading the entire book on film? Or just ads and excerpts?
Man, that would be different! Buy a DVD of someone just sitting there reading a book out loud...I bet it would sell too!
Hi Dave. I think there are a bazillion ways to create video that promotes a book. I personally think the most exciting method would be to work with a film crew and make the promo look like a movie trailer, or a scene from a movie... and then you say, "Read the book the find out what happens!"
That's what I envision anyway...
Yeah, you're right N.L., I just had this vision of the new alternative to books on cassettes! Maybe put a whole book read on Youtube!ha!
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