The Book Trailer

The other day I was watching a TV show online and it had a commercial for a teen novel, The Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare. At first I wasn't sure what I was watching because it looked like a video game's animated characters. When I finally realized what it was, I got pretty excited (being a librarian and all). I think I've only seen one or two others in the past 2-3 years.

For the uninitiated, a book trailer is similar to a movie trailer (preview, teaser), which is a video advertisement for the book. The similarities pretty much end there.

• Most book trailers are created by amateur fans (some are created by publishers)
• Because most book trailers are created by fans they tend to be a little cheesy
• Book trailers are meant more to get people to read than to make money
• Book trailers are being created for old and new books
• Most book trailers are for teen books

While doing a little research on the topic I discovered there is actually some criteria for what is and isn't a book trailer. For example, did you know that book trailers cannot contain author readings or excerpts from the book?

Anyways, I hope I continue to see book trailers on TV. It's such a great way to promote books to the masses.

Here are a few of my favorite book trailers. I also added the Clockwork Angel trailer.