Promotions
I just finished reading an interesting article. It was a report from the San Fancisco Chronicle and it was about a particular book promotion. We are used to seeing books promoted in magazines, on posters around the place, in fancy stands in bookshops and via word of mouth. In recent years promotion through the Internet has rapidly increased with many writers now having their own web sites etc. Of course if a book is lucky enough to be made into a movie, the book itself will often see increased sales and readership, some even assuming cult status (Da Vinci Code, Harry Potter etc).
The thing that made this most recent promotion newsworthy is that it has never been done before. The publishers hired a film maker to create short film (about a minute and a half) based on a section of the book. The clip was professionally produced and was made to make the audience want to find out what would happen next. The clip was then put on YouTube. The idea being that thousands of people would see it and be inclined to email it to their friends. In this way, millions of people become intrigued and want to buy the book to find out what happens.
We are used to seeing movies made from books. Many readers are often disappointed in the results. So what happens when this happens in the reverse?
Part of the enjoyment in reading a book is that we are able to create images of the characters and the setting in our minds; perhaps if we see someone elses visual interpretations of these things first it will take away some of the enjoyment of the story.
On the other hand, I am sure that we miss hundreds of fantastic books simply because we don't ever find them. Perhaps the writer is unknown, the cover isn't appealing, it doesn't have the expensive displays in the bookshops and it is never made into a movie.
Perhaps this promotional technique will be a once off, of maybe it will become a very popular and successful way to promote books amongst a generation that spends far more time on the internet than in book stores. Regardless, I believe that it will still be word of mouth (or email) that will have the greatest force for promoting books.
I would love to know what you think about this promotion idea and also the most successful methods you use to find great books.
TC
The thing that made this most recent promotion newsworthy is that it has never been done before. The publishers hired a film maker to create short film (about a minute and a half) based on a section of the book. The clip was professionally produced and was made to make the audience want to find out what would happen next. The clip was then put on YouTube. The idea being that thousands of people would see it and be inclined to email it to their friends. In this way, millions of people become intrigued and want to buy the book to find out what happens.
We are used to seeing movies made from books. Many readers are often disappointed in the results. So what happens when this happens in the reverse?
Part of the enjoyment in reading a book is that we are able to create images of the characters and the setting in our minds; perhaps if we see someone elses visual interpretations of these things first it will take away some of the enjoyment of the story.
On the other hand, I am sure that we miss hundreds of fantastic books simply because we don't ever find them. Perhaps the writer is unknown, the cover isn't appealing, it doesn't have the expensive displays in the bookshops and it is never made into a movie.
Perhaps this promotional technique will be a once off, of maybe it will become a very popular and successful way to promote books amongst a generation that spends far more time on the internet than in book stores. Regardless, I believe that it will still be word of mouth (or email) that will have the greatest force for promoting books.
I would love to know what you think about this promotion idea and also the most successful methods you use to find great books.
TC
posted by Library Blog | 9:38 am
4 Comments:
Wow, that's so interesting, I'd love to find out more about his book and the short film made about it. I think it's an interesting issue that you raised about the formation of characters in our minds, and personaly I think that it might spoil the book a bit to see an image of a character before you had the chance to form one yourself.
Thanks for this insight
Hi Sal, thanks for your comment. You can find out more via the following link: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/09/18/BUG7FL4TTE1.DTL
Enjoy!
I think this way of promoting books via the internet is a great idea. But it may only work for the younger generation, because older people (my dad for example) can be prolific readers but hate technology and definatly spend more time in bookshops than on the internet. Another thing that might go wrong with this idea is if a lot of books did this it would become more commonplace and less effective, I think this particular advertising technique would be more effective for the first couple of clips people see but after that would lose its appeal. But I agree with Sal (see comments) on the issue of seeing an image of a character before you had a chance to form one for yourself would spoil the story a bit.
Hi TC,
books are cool, I like books. It's pretty incredible the growth of youtube and what people on there. It's a bit bad that google bought it. The internet is supposed to be the place of non-monopoly, aka perfect competition. I think the best search engine is Vivisimo, have you heard of it. It's better to support the little guy. Myspace is also evil. I suppose it's good, google that is, because they're powering this great blog.
As always
Your biggest fan,
JC
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