LFP Magazine

Marie Hansen-Lehmann is a Young Adult Librarian. She has reviewed books for School Library Journal and has a blog about teen lit, librarianship, and sometimes music called The Cupcake Witch. She is part of the anthology Cassette From My Ex (St. Martin’s Griffin) and had a show on 90.1 fm WUSB for six years. She currently lives in Queens and works in the Village.

She is also a horror movie aficionado and has written a great list of film recommendations for the Halloween season for the Woman Around Town blog. Check it out HERE. I took her recommendation to see the film Cemetery Man and did not regret it.

Cemetery Man

When did book trailers first become a common trend in publishing?

Book trailers became popular with the popularity of social networking websites like facebook/myspace & also easy places to upload videos online like youtube. I actually didn’t know too much about the origins of book trailers so I looked it up and found out that the term “book trailer” is actually trademarked!!

This trailer is a good example of the more typical book trailer, usually created by the publishers. These trailer usually have multiple fonts and have a focus mainly on key words rather than images from the book. Most of the images are created with stock photos and usually the soundtrack is a pop song or a what I call a “elevator pop song” (a song that sounds like it could be Brittany Spears and there is no vocal track).

Are the publishers or authors typically responsible for the trailers?

So far, it’s actually a mix. Some publishers- particularly for young adult books- make trailers because they know it is one of the best ways to reach their target audience. But, just because you have a book does not mean you are going to get a trailer. Some book trailers are made by fans; some are made as part of contests created by the publishers or authors, some are made by the authors themselves! There are tons of different ways trailers come to be made.

There are three major production houses that focus on creating book trailers and even a book trailer award that (I think) was created by the important industry journal Kirkus.

Vania is a young photographer who gained inspiration to make this book trailer after reading Zink’s novel. The music is composed by Michelle Zink’s son, Kenneth Zink, an aspiring film score composer. All of the images were created by Vania and you can see the intense detail she took in making the trailer fit the mood and plot of the book accurately. I think its absolutely stunning.

What does this tell you about the publishing industry? (i.e. Is it a sign of desperation in attracting new readers? Is it an attempt to reach an audience that is raised on television and films? Is it an attempt to attract movie deals for their books?)

I think that book trailers just show the progressiveness of the publishing industry. I think they realize that the Internet is one of the most popular forms of entertainment and a great way to market new books. Book trailers are just so easy to post & to spread like “viral videos”. The typical book trailer costs $2,000 to $5,000 dollars to make… but it’s a form of advertising that spreads itself- people take the link and post it to their website, blog, social networking page… I feel that it is much more effective than a print advertisement in a magazine that is fixed in place.

I also think that, by the large presence of fan-made book trailers out there, it shows that the publishing industry is actually thriving & that fans of books can really express their love & appreciation for reading in this whole new, really creative way. I definitely see it as a positive thing.

Do you feel that the way books are written now are done so more as script treatments as opposed to expressive literary works due to the success of film franchises like Harry Potter and Twilight? If so, do you feel like this detracts from the reading experience, or is simply a logical evolution of the craft?

I don’t think most writers write with the idea of getting their book optioned for film.

I think that writers (and publishers) do hope that they will be the next Twilight but …I think that people just write whatever story they want to tell. When I read a book like Twilight or Harry Potter, I don’t get a particular “draw” that they were written intentionally for the screen and I don’t think that most writers, when they are in the process of writing a novel think in cinematic terms either.

One thing that I have noticed is that once a book is made into a movie the genre blows up with people writing tons and tons of read-a-likes. But, I don’t think those authors are looking for their work to be made into films too, I think they just want their book to sell and they try to get them to sell by jumping on the vampire or wizard or whatever-is-popular wagon too.

This book trailer is one where the music AND movie were made by the actual author of the book. It’s gorgeous and very different than a lot of other trailers out there because of its use of stop-motion animation rather than still photography or fonts.

If modern minds are used to processing information at such rapid rates, as they do with television or the Internet, do you feel that the intricacy and depth of classic literature will continue to be explored by young readers? What do you feel might be the social impact of this widespread short attention span and thirst for instant gratification?

I don’t think that most young readers have EVER liked to read deep, classic literature. When I was in high school, I just could NOT get through books like The Great Gatsby or Moby Dick or whatever… And I was always a big reader! I think that love for classic literature comes later on in life.

It’s an interesting idea though, since we always hear about attention spans being shortened, its amazing how could certain books could get so popular. If you look at Twilight- each one of the books in that series is like 600 pages- same with the later Harry Potter novels—I don’t think younger people’s attention spans are getting shorter, I think that like everything, if you are a teenager you are going to focus on whatever it is you are interested in for however long you are interested. Kids today who play video games, will play the same video game over & over & over again- people don’t realize that what they are doing is showing that they have a very vast attention span… it’s going to be for Halo 3 rather than Wuthering Heights.