Video Trailers Beat Book Reviews
in Promoting New Titles
"We can't create a television spot for less than $75,000, let alone buy the media," says John Pitts, Vice President/Director of Marketing for Doubleday. "So, for our new novel
"Rules of Deception," an espionage thriller by Christopher Reich -- we've created a series of video trailers as the core of our marketing campaign. Yes, it takes more work to produce a video trailer for a book than it does to sign off on a newspaper ad. But it's worth it."
Of his new book, the author says,
"It's a story about an honest and courageous doctor named Jonathan Ransom. He's a surgeon who works for Doctors Without Borders in some of the toughest parts of the world. He's a happily married man with a big heart and a beautiful English wife he deeply loves named Emma who works with him. What Jonathan doesn't know is that nothing about his life is what it seems. In fact, it's all a web of lies and he's caught in the middle of something extraordinarily dangerous... I can't say more than that, and I shouldn't have to, because if I've done my job right, when you get to page five you'll be hooked and you won't come up for air until it's all said and done."
In keeping with the genre, Pitts has commissioned three plot-driven trailers that are tailored for Reich's fan base. The videos' images are high tech and slick, and they use cutting-edge effects. "It's a really good fit," enthuses Pitts. "We used a really talented voice over guy. Finding the right musical score and laying down a compelling audio track, in this case, was as important as getting the video right."
Pitts views the action-packed, image-loaded trailers as entertainment vehicles rather than as ads. In a sense, the multimedia book previews are Trojan horses designed to reach an audience that just isn't finding, let alone reading, book reviews in newspapers anymore.
"The book review opportunities have shrunk dramatically, and we publish too many books to count on getting them all reviewed in the major daily newspapers and magazines. So book reviews are becoming less relevant for us
video trailers are a more reliable and effective way of carrying our message to an audience that cares about it. We can put these videos out on blogs and scatter them throughout the Internet. Amazon, in fact, has become a real medium for discovering books, and video trailers are a great way to reach targeted people who are increasingly hard to find," says Pitts.
The trailers for Rules of Deception invite viewers, and potential readers, to interact by entering a sweepstakes. "We're giving away a Magellan GPS, a Sony eBook reader, and an Apple iPodtouch which are perfect for espionage thriller fans. The winners will love the gadgets, so the prize selection was just the obvious choice for us," Pitts explains.
Pitts is currently available for interviews. Please let me know if you'd like scheduling information. You can view the multimedia trailers for "Rules of Deception" online at Rules of Deception
reich-rules-trailer1.htm
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