The world of book marketing has certainly changed over the past few years. When I was a kid, all you had to go on when choosing a book was the blurb on the back or prior knowledge of the author, which would explain all the Nancy Drew and Bobbsey Twins books in the collections of people of a certain age – we bought what we knew. I also used to love pouring over the Scholastic flyers when they came to school, those little snippets enticing me to part with my hard-earned cash. (Come to think of it, I still love the Scholastic flyers!)
We didn’t have access to books the way we do now – no book superstores like Chapters/Indigo, no online stores like The Book Depository or Bookcloseouts. For me, I went to the library a lot and received books as gifts.
Now, in addition to the scads of information on the Internet, savvy book publishers are making awesome little book trailers to promote books. They aren’t all created equal, of course, but some of them can make the book seem really appealing (just like a movie trailer). I also love doing book trailers with kids in the classroom. I’ve done them a couple times with different groups and the kids really enjoy doing them and the results are almost always thoughtful and creative.
Here are some great book trailers.
and this one, Amazon’s Best Book Video of 2009!
The Ludic Reader 