1: John Connolly's "The Killing Kind" - John was very kind to let me use the permission on his book for this one and he even watched it himself, which was nice. This is the current flagship of our Book Trailer operation and it'd be great to know what you think of it - comment back on our Youtube or Vimeo :)
2.
And then along came the completely made up "Orbit Runner", which came
about as a test subject for a trailer style. I liked it so much that I
turned it into a full trailer, complete with space scenes, smoky movie
text and blockbuster straplines. Actually, all that's missing (I know I
know, one of the things) is a movie-guy voice over. If you have a
movie voice, then get in touch and we can lay down an audio track to
die for.
So
that is what we have so far and I can hear you all screaming "but what,
oh Cautious Train, are you up against?" Well, to be honest, it varies.
There are some eye-searing awful ones (and as we slowly move upwards in
this chimaeric industry, we don't want to offend potential customers, so
we certainly won't link to them) and some really quite clever ones, albeit with budget and celebrity-kudos.
Hold on hold on. Chimaeric.
I was trying to get across that it was a many-headed beast, ravenous
for blood. But likable, if you got the cuddly head. Ummm... let's kill
this analogy before it gets out of hand. -stab-
Ahem. A good place to get a gauge of the recent book trailers is the Moby Awards,
where they have the best of, but also the turkeys of the year... lets
hope we eventually fall into the right category there :) There's an
awful lot of deviation in the medium of book trailers at the moment and
there are a lot of commentators talking about finding the right balance
between book, film, trailer, live action etc etc. And I agree, it is a
minefield. A bad trailer could happily backfire, possibly causing people
who were passibly interested and might have picked the book up (or
sucked it on to their ebook shelf) to be put off completely.
But then again, it is a cheap method of marketing... (drumroll) at least it is if you choose Cautious Train!
But clicking the links above will demonstrate a fair range on what is
happening. As it stands, it's a blossoming industry, squatting between
films and books like some strange weed twisting to get some sun.
So I'll write more as Book Trailers develop on Cautious Train.
Take care. Read books. Watch book trailers. But above all, be Cautious.
Tom of Cautious Train Productions.
