Another experiment in publishing…
In a previous article I posted to this blog, I wrote about my experiment with a new (for me) ebook aggregator, Draft2Digital (D2D), that allows an author to “go wide.” It’s now time to write about an even earlier experiment.
The D2D experiment involved The Last Humans: A New Dawn, my most recent novel and sequel to The Last Humans. This second and earlier experiment involves Death on the Danube, #3 in the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” Series. I published that book with my reliable Carrick Publishing run by my good friend Donna Carrick, squeezing it into her very busy schedule, so here “going wide” involved the venerable book aggregator Smashwords, now D2D’s competitor. The experiment was a book trailer.
The two experiments are linked, though. I entered The Last Humans, published by Black Opal Books, in a Readers’ Favorite contest, taking the advice of good friend and author Keith Steinbaum; that post-apocalyptic thriller won a consolation prize, a free book trailer (better said, the cost of the trailer corresponded to that of entering the contest). Castelane, run by Kim McDougall, offers several resources for authors, including book trailers. Ms. McDougall was good enough to allow me to use the freebie for Death on the Danube. Here’s the link.
You might have watched some book trailers before. You can’t get away from James Patterson’s, for example; they’re even on network TV channels. (He has to pay for his, or his publisher does, and those TV ad spots add to the cost. Must be nice to have access to marketing funding like that!)
Like movie trailers, book trailers are teasers. They’re designed to capture readers’ attentions so they’ll say, “I have to read that book!” Without any qualifications as a critic of book PR and marketing, and modesty aside, I rather like my trailer. It captures the theme of the book well. I especially like the little segment about the swans showing how Esther and Bastiann were distracted on their honeymoon cruise by the murder investigation.
The important question about a book trailer is the same for all book marketing: Does it do any good? While mine was free as a contest prize, they can be expensive (especially in Patterson’s case!). As a reader, will you buy a book after seeing its trailer? I know some moviegoers are trailer addicts, but what about readers? Are you tempted by a book trailer? Do you even watch them?
Because of the cost, these are important questions. I’ll confess that my own book trailer is the only one I’ve really paid any attention to (I mute Patterson’s just like I do any TV commercial). And I haven’t noticed any uptick in sales figures for Death on the Danube. Maybe it’s too early to tell? And maybe other authors have good experiences with trailers I haven’t heard about. (Please tell me if you have. Because this is a new marketing element for me, I might be doing things all wrong!)
I prefer reading the book or watching the movie to viewing their trailers. While I’m as much a visual person as the next guy (I visualize fight scenes in a thriller, for example, in my own books as well as other authors’), a book trailer doesn’t turn me on anymore than a good book cover (which I pay little attention to unless it’s awful). There’s the audio component too, of course—I like the sound track in mine—but the total package, while pleasant if done right (and Castelane does it right), just doesn’t move me to buy a book. And, for the same price, an author can purchase a lot more conventional marketing help. But that’s maybe just my incorrect opinion.
Let me know what you think.
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Comments are always welcome.
Happy New Year to everyone. This is the time for resolutions and changes. Here are mine that will affect this blog. First, “News & Notices from the Writing Trenches,” my long-running online newsletter, will no longer be published here. I will continue my email newsletter, which contains recent news about reading, writing, and publishing; information about my books and special sales (available only to email newsletter subscribers); and reading recommendations of other authors’ books. Second, I’m reducing the number of weekly articles from three to one. I’ve already eliminated op-eds (the election is over and it’s time for America to move forward and heal from both COVID and the nightmarish and evil aberration that was Trump), and reducing the number of articles even further will allow me more time to write. You might find that one weekly article to be a little longer and more pithy, though. All of this is subject to change, of course.
Death on the Danube. In #3 in the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” Series, Esther Brookstone, ex-MI6 agent in East Berlin in the Cold War, and more recently ex-Scotland Yard Inspector in the Art and Antiques Division, is on her honeymoon with Interpol agent Bastiann van Coevorden. Their idyllic cruise down the Danube is interrupted when a reclusive and mysterious passenger is murdered. Why was the victim even on that river boat filled with couples, in a stateroom by himself? And who killed him? Esther and Bastiann are often called Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot by wags at the Yard, and this addition to the series might remind readers of Christie’s Death on the Nile or Murder on the Orient Express, but this mystery/thriller is very twenty-first century. So tour the Danube with Esther and Bastiann…and enjoy the ride! Available wherever fine ebooks are sold…and there’s also a print version.
Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!
