Book Trailer

Want to make a cool book trailer? Check out Chronicle Books’ YouTube page to get ideas. The company’s videos are so catchy that YouTube itself is featuring the publisher as part of its corporate video demo series.

In the “It’s Easy to Make Great YouTube Videos” video (embedded above) features Chronicle’s associate marketing director Albee Dalbotten. In the video, she explains Chronicle’s approach, “we don’t necessarily set out to make a video that’s going to go viral. Our goal is always to give someone some sense of intrigue, where they want to find out more.”

Still, the publisher has managed to have a number of videos that have caught on. For example, “Boo: The Life of the World’s Cutest Dog,” a video about a dog that writes books, has been viewed more than 800,000 times.

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In that new book trailer for The Family Corleone, mobsters visit Grand Central Publishing trying to get a galley copy of the Ed Falco novel. The book is a prequel to The Godfather, based on a screenplay by Mario Puzo.

Grand Central editor Mitch Hoffman assured his Twitter followers: “No editors were harmed in the filming of this video.” Indeed, even the highly believable editor in the book trailer was a well-cast actor.

Check it out: “New York, 1933. The city and the nation are in the depths of the Great Depression. The crime families of New York have prospered in this time, but with the coming end of Prohibition, a battle is looming that will determine which organizations will rise and which will face a violent end. For Vito Corleone, nothing is more important that his family’s future.”

Amazon Publishing’s 47 North imprint has released a book trailer for The Mongoliad: Book One, the first installment in a group-written novel headlined by Neal Stephenson and Greg Bear.

Instead of making a Hollywood version of the book or hiring actors, the video actually reflects on the inherent silliness of making a book trailer in the first place. It ends with the tagline: “Some books are so good, a trailer just seems Medieval.”

Here’s more about the book: “The Foreworld medieval adventure saga was actually born out of swordfighting. Stephenson and the other authors are avid practitioners of Western martial arts and they are part of an enthusiastic study group in Seattle. Stephenson realized that the descriptions of swordfighting in his novels would have been much better with contributions from people with fighting expertise. Thus the idea for a saga about the complex, bloody history of Western martial arts was born, co-written by Neal Stephenson, Greg Bear, Mark Teppo, E.D. deBirmingham, Joseph Brassey, Erik Bear, and Cooper Moo.” (Via Reddit Lit Video)

Instead of hiring actors or making a Hollywood-style book trailer, novelist Jurgen Fauth had remix artist Ivan Guerrero create a book trailer for his new new novel, Kino.

Guerrero is a video creator who uses public domain footage to make popular “premakes” of films such as Up! (1965), The Avengers (1952), and The Empire Strikes Back (1950). His inspiring work shows a whole world of possibilities for book trailers.

If you are looking for public domain material to use in your own book trailers, you should explore the Prelinger Archives online–a collection of 60,000 “advertising, educational, industrial, and amateur” films assembled by Rick Prelinger over the last twenty years.

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Fifty years before the book trailer even existed, the great Ernest Hemingway experimented by recording a rambling and possibly intoxicated introduction to Across the River and into the Trees.

Miracle Jones posted the video at the new literary videos section at Reddit, suggesting that “all writers should do this with their books.” What do you think? Open Culture has more about the recording:

The reading is called “In Harry’s Bar in Venice,” and it was recorded with a pocket recorder sometime in the late 1950s. You can access the recording (thanks to HarperAudio) in multiple formats here: .au format, .gsm format, .ra format. Or you can buy it as part of a larger collection called Ernest Hemingway Reads Ernest Hemingway.

That’s the spooky book video for Ben Marcus‘ new book, The Flame Alphabet. Artist and author Erin Cosgrove created the video, offering this important advice for aspiring book trailer makers: “do it out of enthusiasm, terror and fun, and not as a job.”

This collaboration should inspire more writers, as 99 percent of book trailers could use some help from a professional artist. Cosgrove shared some book trailer advice in a GalleyCat interview–you can read her thoughts below.

Here’s more about Cosgrove’s career: “Cosgrove is an artist and writer who uses video, animation, books, painting, scrolls, timelines, installation, and performance in her artwork … Her art novel, The Baader-Meinhof Affair, was published by Printed Matter, NY, in 2003.”

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The currently free Action Movie FX app will let Apple users add missile explosions and car crashes into your next book trailer.

As you can see by the video embedded above, this GalleyCat editor tested the program with his galley copy of Neil Gaiman‘s upcoming The Annotated Sandman. If you use the app for your next book video, email us the link!

Here are more special effects: “Look like an action star as you evade a massive CAR CRASH! Direct a MISSILE ATTACK at that broken office printer! Post your videos to Facebook & show the world what you got! GET CREATIVE! Shoot your movies at ANY SCALE – from toys to life-size! ADDITIONAL FX FOR PURCHASE: CHOPPER DOWN & TORNADO ACTION BUNDLE Unleash a TORNADO in any weather OR bring an enemy CHOPPER DOWN! AIRSTRIKE & FIRE FIGHT ATTACK BUNDLE CARPET BOMB the bad guys, or RUN FOR COVER as they OPEN FIRE! MORE FX TO COME – STAY TUNED!!!”

To promote the upcoming Muppets movie, the social video service Viddy will help you digitally add a Kermit, Miss Piggy, Fozzie or Gonzo into your next book video. You can see other Muppet-inspired videos at this link.

iPhone and iPad 2 owners can use the free app to record brief videos. Combining the quick information delivery of Twitter with the creative network of Instagram, Viddy gives users 15-seconds to record a video and share it with other friends on the video app’s social network..

Here’s more about the service: “Featuring some of the beloved Muppets brought to life in 15-second video clips, the Muppet Pack offers fans a unique opportunity to create personalized interactive video clips with their favorite characters. Available via the iPhone Viddy app, the easy to use one-click effects and soundtrack give fans the opportunity to interact with the Muppets on film and get creative with producing their own video content.”

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In a new book video, Jersey Shore star Snooki visits Simon & Schuster and delivers tips from Confessions of a Guidette.

What do you think? As you can see, the video brings Jersey Shore-style makeup and mayhem to the major publishing house. The longer director’s cut version has been removed. Above, we’ve embedded the original.

As of this writing, the original version has earned 1,900 views on YouTube, counting 11 likes, 20 dislikes and a few comments. The comments were brief: “I’ve just witnessed the death of Western Civilization.” and “Oh dear God, she should not be allowed near a book.”

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Sometimes all you need for a book trailer is a telephone. For his new set of book trailers, author Shalom Auslander recorded dark and absurd phone calls with his friends.

To support his new novel, Hope: A Tragedy, Auslander staged strange conversations with Ira Glass (embedded above), John Hodgman and Sarah Vowell. What do you think of the series?

Here’s more about the book: “Hope: A Tragedy is a hilarious and haunting examination of the burdens and abuse of history, propelled with unstoppable rhythm and filled with existential musings and mordant wit. It is a comic and compelling story of the hopeless longing to be free of those pasts which haunt our every present.”