Author Archives: überliterate

In case you weren’t aware, the 2011 Moby Awards were presented last night.  I know what you’re thinking: the what awards?  The Moby Awards are only in their second year of existence, commemorating both the very best and the very worst in book trailer videos.  Winners receive a gold sperm whale to celebrate their superb or superbly bad book trailers.  Formal attire is recommended.

I’m fairly ambivalent on the subject of book trailers.  I can’t remember a single instance where I saw a book trailer online and thought, wow, now I really need to buy/read that book!  This is probably because I never seek them out; I am most likely to stumble across one while looking up information about a book I know I’m already interested in, or already own.  I’ve certainly seen some entertaining book trailers, and we periodically post them with our reviews on this blog.  But the best advertisement for me is the book itself or a trusted friend’s recommendation.  I don’t look to YouTube for additions to my TBR.

So I am not certain how useful book trailers are in the first place.  Feel free to weigh in if you never buy a book without watching its trailer first, or if that is your main source of reading recommendations.  But I’m willing to bet that’s not the case.  You see, we’re readers.  We don’t need to watch a video to convince us to read a book; we simply pick up the book (or read the summary, sample page, and reviews online) and decide if it speaks to us.  And when it does speak to us, it most often says, “Take me home with you!  I’m cute and I like to snuggle.”

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