Post­ed by Nao­mi Firestone-Teeter

The Spring issue of Jew­ish Book World is com­ing soon! To cel­e­brate, we thought we’d share a sneak peek of the issue with an excerpt from Jaclyn Trop​’s arti­cle ​“Book Trail­ers: Seen the Trail­er? Now Read the Book!”:

Imag­ine sit­ting face-to-face with a poten­tial read­er, explain­ing why he or she should pick up your book. Add music, col­ors, ani­ma­tion, and a flash of plot to sup­port your argu­ment. Can you make the sale?

You have three min­utes. Go!

Book trail­ers — short pro­mo­tion­al videos that authors post to the Web — are a marketer’s dream, adding anoth­er tool to the sales arse­nal while reach­ing an expo­nen­tial audi­ence. These videos, which are like movie pre­views but for the pix­i­lat­ed screen, can strike to the heart of a book’s premise in a way a tra­di­tion­al print adver­tise­ment can’t. Best of all, they can be replayed on com­mand, e‑mailed and shared among Web users with the click of a button.

“Once some­thing goes up on the Inter­net, it’s there for­ev­er,” said Sheila Clover Eng­lish, CEO of Cir­cle of Sev­en Pro­duc­tions, which cre­ates and dis­trib­utes book trail­ers. Eng­lish trade­marked the term ​“book trail­er” in 2002 and has seen busi­ness increase from 12 trail­ers in 2005 to more than 200 last year.

Pro­duc­tion time varies — from a cou­ple of weeks to less than a day — and costs can range from sev­er­al thou­sand dol­lars to pen­nies, depend­ing upon the author’s degree of involve­ment. But dis­tri­b­u­tion is free of charge, and trail­ers can be post­ed any­where, from YouTube and Ama​zon​.com to author blogs and read­er forums.

Unlike the ephemer­al pow­er of a radio or tele­vi­sion spot, a book trail­er is ​“active­ly work­ing for you,” Eng­lish said. ​“It’s always sell­ing your book.” A new author can expect his or her trail­er to be viewed between 10,000 and 50,000 times in a two-week peri­od. On aver­age, between 30 and 60 per­cent of view­ers make a direct pur­chase after watch­ing, Eng­lish said.

To read the com­plete arti­cle, be sure to check out the Spring issue of Jew­ish Book World. To sub­scribe, please click here.

Pre­view some of the trail­ers fea­tured lat­er in the article: