Will this save publishing? Movie trailers for books
Image via Wikipedia
As a fan of both zombies (see my back page Q&A with George A. Romero in the current issue of Nylon Magazine), and Jane Austen, I’ve been following (if not necessarily reading) the whole trend started by Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.
And while there’s of course a movie in the works – how could there not be a movie in the works for something called Pride and Prejudice and Zombies? – there is not, at least not yet, a movie in the works for its print matter follow-up, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls.
But that didn’t stop the book’s publisher, the suddenly wealthy Quirk Classics, from making a trailer for the book. A trailer for the book. Not the film. Because there is no film. Not yet.
“Shooting a trailer for anything is always a challenge,” says the director of the trailer. “A movie trailer takes all the coolest shots from a film which usually shoots for several months and condenses them down to 2 action-packed minutes. Additionally, the trailer usually highlights the most expensive shots in the movie. We had a short film budget, but had to make it feel like the highlights from an epic feature, all while shooting at most 2 or 3 days.”
The Zombies book is now in its sixteenth printing and has been translated into seventeen languages. It’s made a drawing room full of cash. But today’s film-goers and readers aren’t dummies. Was this trailer a clever move, or a big waste of cash?
Post Your Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment
T/S Members
Log in with your True/Slant account.
Coincidentally, we just talked about this tonight in my fiction class. Except it was a trailer for Dan Chaon’s Await Your Reply (2009) put out by Ballantine. And we’ve all seen the painful romance/murder mystery novel ads on Hulu. Maybe this IS the future, or at least a way to convince to the internet generation to read.
Interesting. It may well be. It makes sense; we’ve been doing novelizations of movies for years!
In response to another comment. See in context »Wasn’t the same thing done with “Abe Lincoln: Vampire Hunter”? There was a video piece on-line that appeared to be a movie trailer, but applied to nothing but this fake “biography.” Unless this piece also will perform double-duty and will serve as a teaser-trailer to an actual movie trailer when the movie version comes out.
Imagine the teaser for “120 Days of Sodom.”
I can very well imagine a teaser for “120 Days of Sodom”! Redband, I’m thinking.
I saw that Abe Lincoln one on Amazon, and that book, by the writer (hell, co-writer) of “Zombies” was part of the six-figure 2-book deal he signed, like, a year ago. This dude turns ‘em around in a hurry! I can see that when he’s only adding 15% to what Jane Austen wrote, but this Abe one is all him… hmm… maybe we’re not looking for literary finesse in something called “Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter.”
In response to another comment. See in context »RE: “AL, VH” — I’m going to guess that the Lincoln novel was something that the author, Grahame-Smith, wanted to do all along, but either couldn’t get it to catch on, or didn’t really have it figured out completely. Or he was looking for a big-deal contract.
In the meantime, however, he hit upon the Bronte-Zombies/Serpents idea (public domain, baby!), realized he could make several of them happen in a hurry, sold them, and then paced their appearance all the while trying to finish “Lincoln.”
Just saying. . .as a working author myself. Total speculation.
Supposedly Tim Burton is interested in making the film version of “AL, VH,” so the book trailer does, in fact, become the preview for the actual movie trailer.
My hat is off to Grahame-Smith, with an exception for the way he appropriates slavery in “AL-VH.” It’s an expediency (exploitation?) that is a tad cynical for such an otherwise fun concept.
In response to another comment. See in context »As I ponder purchasing an e-reader, I wonder if the trailer idea may catch on. It would give readers a chance to get a little information on a book before purchasing it and it could be downloaded before a book purchase on the reader. Seems odd to me but it could work given the new technology….
Besides, I remember seeing many a tv commercial for “Dianetics” and that seems to have worked out… at least for L Ron and T cruise and zenu….
Definitely. I read a recent New Yorker piece about the iPad and Apple’s foray into the e-book world. One of the things that Jobs has been talking about, apparently (and I’m not sure that this is a good thing, but hey…) is integrating other media into the “book reading experience” or something like that. So yeah, trailers, definitely. I imagine a “play” button on the inside cover of the book. And other interactive features throughout. I’m not sure the Kendall will have that sort of capacity (since it’s interface is made of digital ink and not light emitting).
In response to another comment. See in context »I honestly don’t know what to make of this. As a writer, I’m encouraged by the idea that publishers are spending big money to promote a book. And certainly the whole Jane Austen/Zombies, Abe Lincoln/Vampire phenomenon lends itself to this kind of promotion.
But isn’t there something kind of sad about it, too? That the big innovation in book promotion is to make books seem more like movies? Or am I just hopelessly behind the times?