By Request

Here's a first for the blog:  a request for a topic!  Now imagine the rest of this blog post in Casey Kasem's voice and it'll sound a lot better.

This request comes from Ethan Cooper in New York City.  He writes:

Dear Casey (er, Grumpy Bulldog)

One of my brothers (my twin, actually) has written and self-published a novel, ESCAPE FROM ENSENDA. With the help of his vanity publisher (not free, I'm sure), he has produced the following video (see link) to promote his book.

 

http://arthurcoleman.smugmug.com/Stock/Client-2/Author-Harris-T-Viencent/19672671_B6pmVm#1543836867_m3Zfh5z-A-LB

 

As a steady reader of your blog, I notice that you often discuss tactics for attracting the attention and support of agents. But have you ever discussed the use of videos to go around agents to reach readers? 

 

Signed,

Ethan Cooper

New York City

Well Ethan, here's your request and dedication.

I thought the video was good.  The production values on it are better than a lot of local commercials for car dealers and such I see, so it's not all that cheesy.  For obvious reasons (like not owning a video camera or web cam) I don't do much with videos, but I remember someone posting about them a few months ago.  (I can't remember who it was, probably someone I linked to from Twitter or Facebook.)  It might have been Writer Beware or one of those writer sites like that with a poll about how much people use book trailers.  The consensus as I remember is that a well-made book trailer can be effective.  

The problem is that in the last few years since YouTube and such, the publishing blogs have been saying you NEED a book trailer.  So a lot of lemmings went out then to make a book trailer.  As you'd expect, most of them had little to no money or experience with that sort of thing.  Which meant most book trailers were terrible.  In turn readers stopped watching so many book trailers because they figured it would be terrible.  Between the saturation and the terribleness of many trailers then your brother might have a hard time getting people to notice his even if it is really good.  It's really as hard as it can be to get people to notice the book itself.

Of course what I think he needs most of all is a Kindle edition for $2.99 or less.  Or other eBook formats.  

And now on with the countdown!