Book Teasers

Okay, this is totally my opinion. I've viewed a lot of book teasers (can't call them trailers, because it has been trademarked). I've seen many I liked a lot, some I didn't. But liking a teaser and having it impel me to go buy the book, well...

Again, MY opinion, but I don't think a teaser should be:

*Long. It's a teaser, not a novella or even a summary of your book. We live in a short attention span society and your teaser is competing with all kinds of crazy stuff on you tube, etc. You can't hope to condense a novel into something comfortable to view anyway. What your goal should be, IMHO, is a hook that makes the viewer want to find out MORE. If you think about movie teasers, most are also short. They are designed for maximum impact and to create questions the viewer needs answered by either seeing the movie or looking it up if it isn't out yet.

*Cast with actors. Again, this is just my opinion, but if I see actors portraying roles in a book, well, it messes with MY casting those parts in my head. And if I'm not wowed by the people playing the parts then it turns me off the book, not on it. The other reason I personally, have issues with book teasers containing acted out sequences if that the teaser is about a BOOK. If people won't read a brief teaser, watching it acted out isn't going to make them buy the book. Teasers should be targeted at READERS.

*No music with words in the background. I find myself listening to the words of the music (or trying to figure it out) and miss the words I'm supposed to be focused on.

I don't have a problem with teasers that have pictures. It should certainly include your cover art. And it can have some nice visuals and good sound is nice, but again, IMHO (I have no data to back this up, just my gut feeling) spend most of your time focusing on the WORDS. Your goal is to tease visits to your website for more information--or better yet, get them to go looking for it in a bookstore.

I did my first teaser and I have no clue if it is a good one or not. Obviously I don't have the necessary distance from it to judge it dispassionately. I may never know if it is successful or not. It's hard to find linkage between any promotion you do and income. (It's on my website on The Key info page, if you're curious or want to mock me.)

So why do a teaser if you don't know if it works or not?

Its just one more tool in your promotion kit, one more way to get your name and book title in front of people. I rarely go looking for book teasers about a book I want to read, because well, I READ books, I don't view them. But I will go look at a link for a friend or if someone forwards me a link with a "this is cool" comment.

So, my last suggestion would be, make it cool. Make it fun so people want to forward i. Be creative. Or completely ignore everything I've written. Because it just MHO.
Perilously yours,
Pauline

Pauline Baird Jones
www.paulinebjones.com
2007 Dream Realm Awards Finalist
The Key; Men in Jeans: Death in Texas Anthology

Rick wished he had a tie to tug on. Not that he liked wearing ties, but the moment seemed to call for a good tie tug. “We need to talk to you about your books, ma’am.”
"Is this some kind of weird joke?” She looked past them, as if she expected a camera crew to pop out of the under brush. “A new reality show?”
“We’re not allowed to joke, ma’am.” It took some work, but his lips didn’t twitch.
(From Men in Jeans, DEATH IN TEXAS Anthology)