Book Trailers: A Critical Part of Your Author Platform

Trailers have been around forever, even for books. But, they have traditionally been reserved for celebrity authors, or trust-fund-baby authors who could spring for them on their own. And, these were usually TV commercials or radio promos. Expensive, effective, and sometimes paid for by publishers in the bygone days when pubs actually promoted author's work.


Now, as the publishing industry morphs into something still unrecognizable and as the Internet continues to level the publishing playing field, the book trailer is coming of age. The ubiquitous author platform (that animal every author needs, but that few author's know they need) now has a new essential component: the book trailer.

If you haven't seen one of these animals, go to Book Trailers, a Blogspot blog. This site lets you view a host of genres and associated book trailers. Novelist Masha Hamilton did her own book trailer for her new novel, "31 Hours," which cost her a pretty penny, but this kind of exposure and advertising is essential now to promote one's work. One of my favorites is a trailer for the New Zealand Book Council, promoting a New Zealand author Maurice Gee's new book "Going West." This is one of the most imaginative and effective trailers I have seen. But, it also illustrates the growing challenge for writers.

No longer can a writer get away with a low-quality, bare-bones marketing campaign. You have to have high production values, which means spending thousand on trailers, websites, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) gurus, and maintenance costs maintaining all these new platforms (gotta pay some techie to make fixes, changes, etc.).

So, herein lies the new challenge: when publishers refuse to spend money promoting authors, and expect the authors to fund this themselves as much as possible, how is a first-time writer expected to compete if h/she doesn't have the marketing budget to set up a website, develop a book trailer, hire SEO experts to get their trailer/site visible on the Web, etc.?

"The publishing problem has been solved," as one publishing luminary has said. But, with more control and power over our work, with the ability to now publish ourselves in a professional and polished way ... the old phrase "with great power comes great responsibility" takes on profound new meaning. Because, with great power and great responsibility also comes great dollar expenditures. I'm not complaining. The new directions and opportunities for self-publishing and the power of the Internet to level the publishing playing field are awesome and exciting. But, the message to writers is loud and clear: we must start seeing our work as a business, as well as an art, and become writer-entrepreneurs. The days of "big daddy publishing" picking up the bills and doing all the work are long gone.

We are now our own publishers—it's a good thing, but gosh it sure gets expensive!

Blogs-to-Books: Cashing in on the Blogosphere

In the race to monetize new media, new strategies are emerging every month (or so it seems). One that is paying off for some writers is to transform their blogs into books. Several well-known blogs have already capitalized on this trend: Julie & Julia, PostSecret, and Stuff White People Like. In the case of Julie & Julia, the author, Julie Powell, has cashed in on a major movie deal with the result being a wonderful studio picture written and directed by Nora Ephron and starring Meryl Streep. Beats a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, eh Julie?

Since 2005, publishers have been looking to the Internet for new opportunities and grist for the pub mill. What they are finding is that there is a lot of "talent" out there. "Talent" here does not mean we're talking about high literature; what it means is that bloggers are producing high-concept, commercial, and marketable fare that adapt well to traditional formats—voila, profit center. Make no mistake, some of these blogger/authors are writing some fun, entertaining blogs. Julie Powell's is a great example of a personal journey worthy of any literary treatment. Julie's story would have made a great book right from the git-go. But, if you look at the other two blogs mentioned earlier, you'll see instantly how they could adapt to a nonfiction format designed for any coffee table.

It should be noted that when I say blog-to-book I'm not talking about the numerous companies (Blogbinders, Blog Books, Blog2Print, etc.) "out there" who provide fee-based services for you to "transform" your blog into a printed book. These are fine for vanity projects, or folks who want a down-dirty hard copy. NO, I'm talking about a traditional publisher and/or agent making a deal with you to get your blog published in a traditional way.

So, what do you have to do to transform your blog into a book? Or is this some backward step in media evolution? Should authors shun "old" forms like print media and look forward—always forward?

Consider what several bloggers told Mashable: The Social Media Guide regarding their recent blog-to-book deals:

Blogger: Ben Huh

Blog: A collection of photos and videos depicting various kinds of failure. Huh acquired the blog in January of 2008 with his company, Pet Holdings — of I Can Has Cheezburger? fame.

Book: Fail Nation: A Visual Romp Through the World of Epic Fails, released in October 2009 by Harper Paperbacks, is basically the blog in book form — except formatted like a travel guide with landmarks and cultural notes.

Public Reaction: “We’ve helped infect the Internet with cat fever and popularize the word ‘FAIL’ world over.”

Highest traffic point: “Every month, we currently have 220 million page views and more than 12 million people coming to the Cheezburger Network.”

How did the book deal come about?: “We were contacted by several literary agents and we pushed it off for a while until we finally had the time to do it.”

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Blogger: Pamela Slim

Blog: Escape From Cubicle Nation shows readers how to do just that — bust out free from those three gray walls and start their own businesses.

Book: Escape From Cubicle Nation: From Corporate Prisoner to Thriving Entrepreneur, released in April 2009 by Portfolio Hardcover, is a guidebook containing Slim’s best material instructing corporate drones how to strike out on their lonesomes.

Highest traffic point: “At it’s highest point, it was about 100,000 page views a month. I have never had a tremendously high traffic blog or large number of subscribers. But I have a lot of really nice readers who happen to be the kind of people who pass on my articles to others.”

How did the book deal come about?: “I got my current book deal when my publisher (Penguin/Portfolio) approached me. I had dabbled in the idea of writing a book before and had met an agent through another author friend, but the effort didn’t really go anywhere. Frustrated by lack of action and no creativity in coming up with a good proposal, I just gave up and went back to blogging. About a year and a half later, I got an e-mail from Penguin saying they were very interested in my writing and wondered if I could put together a proposal. Since they were my number one choice for a publishing house, I moved like lightening. We closed a deal in six weeks.”
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Blogger: Walker Lamond

Blog: A collection fatherly advice on how to be a good man.

Book: Rules for My Unborn Son, released in October 2009 by St. Martins — like the blog — offers a collection of advice from father to son.

Public Reaction: “My mom really likes it. And as it turns out, quite a few other people too. Within a few weeks of going online, I attracted my core group of a few thousand readers–mostly thanks to the Tumblr community, which (contrary to popular opinion of bloggers) is incredibly supportive, especially to new writers and ideas. I thought more people might call me out on being too earnest or square, but the reaction from most people has been really positive. You need a break from the snark and irony once in a while.”

Traffic-driving methods: “Tumblr. Without it I have no idea how anyone outside my group of friends would have found the site. But the staff at Tumblr and a few of the popular bloggers saw it and wrote about it, and I was off and running. Twitter has been a surprisingly good way to get more readers. The content on my site seems well suited for it, simply because it is short and a whole post usually fits in one tweet. It doesn’t drive people to my website, but the content gets passed around and I think that has helped strengthen the brand if you will.”

Highest traffic point: “That’s like asking someone their salary. It’s not a runaway hit like Penguins or What Fat People Like or one of those hot memes, but I think more people have read my site than say, the books of Ethan Hawke. So that’s something.”

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These are just three examples from the December 17, 2009 post at Mashable: The Social Media Guide. One thing to note on all these examples is the volume of hits per month (average). In order to get noticed by potential agents and pubs your blog will have to be in the hundreds of thousands or millions of hits per month. This is a lot of traffic! So, one of the success factors for getting your blog-to-book involves really savvy social network marketing strategizing on your part and really, really, really good SEO (search engine optimization). I'm going to do a more detailed post later down the line about steps bloggers need to take to leverage this process of book-to-blog for maximum results. I'm working with a friend on turning her terrific blog into a book, as we "speak," so I'll have some real-world experience with this in short order.

In the meantime, my take on this is pretty simple. Worry about print in ten years, not now. Right now, everything is on the table. Books are not going anywhere, but they are going to move into the background and lose their primacy as first-and-only choice for readers. As e-books evolve and become more viral, their print versions will become the aftermarket, rather than the other way around. But, right now print books are selling very well (not fiction!—nonfiction). Leveraging this fact is only smart if a blogger has a marketable idea that will translate to a printed page.

It's not enough to just write your clever blog. You have to market it, make it as viral as H1N1, and build your base into millions of hits. This means using every social media trick in the book—pun intended. Blog-to-book—one more window opens for writers, and it's a good thing.

Twitter-Lit: Pushes to Become Real Lit!

Would you pay 30$ for a hardcover book of tweets from your favorite Twitter-lit author? (See my earlier posts on Twitter-lit.)

Apparently, there are a lot of people who are interested in doing just that. In fact, an enterprising web-strategy agency called Definitely Something has started a project called TweetBookz, designed to help twits (excuse me ... I mean tweeters) to self-publish their Twitter-lit and then sell their labors in the form of an actual book.

In an interview with Mediabistro's Galleycat, Definitely Something's Rob Goldstone gave a little background about their effort:

"Most of our work is spent on sites like Twitter, on behalf of our clients, and one day we started joking around with the idea that it would be cool to see all our writing in a more permanent form ... So far the reactions have been very positive, with early book orders and lots of blogs picking up on the story. We hope its just the beginning and are ready for the holiday shopping boom."
(Mediabistro 2009, Galleycat Interview with Rob Goldstone)

Regarding who might want to do this, Goldstone commented:

"Others may create books of the tweets they consider their funniest or most inspiration. Some may go to the extreme and pick only tweets about the basics of life such as what they ate or what they did that day. We'd also love to see companies active on Twitter ordering their own TweetBookz as gifts for their employees or customers."
(Mediabistro 2009, Galleycat Interview with Rob Goldstone)

So, what does it all mean? This is not just an enterprising company leveraging some flavor-of-the-month web service. This effort may end up just an "expensive mistake," but it might also be the first of a trend that grows. Self-publishing on the web is ubiquitous and growing exponentially every month. As a publishing luminary said, "The publishing problem has been solved." Meaning, if you want to publish, you are no longer at sufferance to the traditional publishing companies. Literally anyone can cheaply and effectively publish their work, and find an audience.

Obviously, quality control is an issue, and herein lies a major role played by publishers—they filter the flotsam and jetsam. But, now you can hire the same QA services from a subsidy publisher, or third-party editors (another area growing leaps and bounds). The changing role of publishers is a whole, complex post in and of itself, and maybe one day, when I feel like typing a lot, I'll do that post, but for now the point is that Tweetbookz is another example of how it is all changing. Creative people are leveraging technology to increase opportunities for writers—and that's enough to make us all sit up and take notice.

Will it be a flash in the pan? Who knows and who cares. I'm all for anything that gets people writing, expressing themselves and finding their voices, even if it means doing so in 140-character tweets.

Wave of Change? Or Sunami?

My head is spinning!

I’m currently involved in producing a movie for DVD release. No, I’m not bragging. It’s still in the financing phase, so it could all just go bye-bye any moment … kind of like Bear Sterns or Lehman Brothers … anyway, my point is that this movie I’m doing is also going to be put up as a webseries. I’m telling you all this because the education I am getting and the slap-upside-my-head experience of researching how webseries need to be “put up” and the wild west nature of this whole process has my head spinning.

In all the spinning, however, I’ve gotten glimpses of a wave of change that is sweeping over the Internet effecting writers of every stripe. This blog entry cannot possibly address all that could or should be said about this. But, hopefully this will generate some dialogue about the topics I’m going to discuss and through this discussion perhaps we will all get a better grasp of what is quickly turning from wave into a sumani.

First off, who is at risk? Yes, I use the word “risk” intentionally. Everyone who writes in formats considered “old media” are at risk. This list includes: novelists, poets, short story writers, playwrights, screenwriters, journalists, academicians, and anyone else who has something to say in the written word (bloggers excluded). Now don’t panic, books are not going anywhere, or films/TV, or short story collections, etc. The risk part has to do with missing out on all the new formats and distribution channels developing to get your work into the “hands” of potential readers. What are these new and risky avenues? Here is a short list, and I’m excluding all the “old,” boring platforms like e-books (soooo 20th Century!):

(Blurbs courtesy of Wikipedia)

Webisodes: A webisode is an episode of a television show that airs initially as an Internet download or stream as opposed to first airing on broadcast or cable television. A webisode is simply a web episode —collectively it is part of a web series, which features a dramatic, serial storyline, where the primary method of viewership is streaming online over the Internet.

Mobisodes: Mobisode is a term for a broadcast television episode specially made for viewing on a mobile telephone screen and usually of short duration (from one to three minutes).

Cell Phone Novels: See my July 13, 2008 entry on this. Cell phone or mobile phone novels are meant to be read in 1,000 to 2,000-word (in China) or 70-word (in Japan) chapters via text message on mobile phones. They are downloaded in short installments and run on handsets as Java-based applications on a mobile phone. Cell phone novels often appear in three different formats: WMLD, JAVA and TXT.

Podcasts: A podcast is a series of audio or video digital-media files which is distributed over the Internet by syndicated download, through Web feeds, to portable media players and personal computers.

Mashups: A digital mashup is a digital media file containing any or all of text, graphics, audio, video and animation drawn from pre-existing sources, to create a new derivative work.

Podiobooks: A specific form of mashup. These are serialized novels or short stories in podcast format, which mix mixed media, narrative, audio, and anything else the writer can squeeze into it. These are very akin to the old radio dramas of the 1930s. (Amazingly there is no Wiki entry on this yet)

Net-Native Narratives: Also, no Wiki entry for this yet. This is very new stuff. This is a form of storytelling that marries traditional narratives with gaming ARG (Alternate Reality Game) environments to create an interactive, immersive narrative experience. Imagine Moby Dick as an interactive, ARG experience. Ok, maybe not the best choice, but how about Dracula?

A writer can certainly choose to ignore all of these tempting tidbits and simply churn out traditional hard copy. This does not make you a Luddite (look it up if you don’t know the term). The John Updikes and the Amy Tans of the literary world will still wow us with their prose and enchant us with great storytelling. But, the Stephen Kings, Dean Koontzes, and Robin Cooks of the world will write their books AND are putting up webisodes and podiobooks and expanding their readership exponentially, attracting readers/viewers they would have missed entirely if they had just relied on pure hard copy and the marketing might of their publishers.

The other empowering aspect of all these tempting tidbits is that authors are now becoming more empowered to take control of how their work is disseminated and this can only be a good thing. For a writer to remain solely at the beck-and-call of their publisher for exposure and distribution is completely unnecessary with all these new technologies. Publishers are pulling back on support for their authors anyway, so now writers are much more capable of taking the reigns of their promotion and distribution into their own hands. Missing this opportunity is one of the main things writers risk by ignoring all these new developments.

Now, it doesn’t mean you have to go back to school and get a degree in Artificial Intelligence for M.I.T. There are lots of companies, services, and consultants out there now to help you develop your work into these new formats—yes, for a price. But, freedom doesn’t come cheap. Nor should it.

Okay. If your head is spinning, join the club. I’m going to leave it at this. Potential, possibility, and opportunity: these are the watchwords for the future. Welcome to a brave new world. Big Brother is watching, but the good news is he’s paying for the privilege through service fees, website memberships, and pay-per-click advertising dollars. Spin, spin, spin.

More on this to come. I have to go lie down.

Interview with Michael Wiese: Michael Wiese Productions

I am very pleased to have the renowned publisher Michael Wiese (Michael Wiese Productions) here to share his views on some of the challenging issues facing writes, publishers and new media developers in today's ever-changing media marketplace.

Michael's publishing company (MWP) began in 1981 and has since become the leading independent publisher of books on screenwriting and filmmaking, with a current line of more than 130 titles. MWP also has a production arm that produces documentaries and independent films (MWP Films).

As a successful independent small press, in an age when small presses are disappearing, MWP has managed to not only hold its brand strong, but to grow and thrive. Anyone working in the publishing world has a lot to learn from a success story like MWP's, and we're lucky enough to get some advice, wisdom and practical know how from one of the masters in the field.

MWP books that cover the whole arc of screenwriting and filmmaking may be found at http://www.mwp.com with a 25% discount.




1. Your publishing company is noted as the leader in the niche entertainment sector. In fact, MWP was recently listed by "MovieMaker Magazine" as one of the top 25 companies that filmmakers need to know. In an age when small presses are dropping like flies, or getting absorbed by larger pubs, how have you managed to maintain your brand and actually grow? And, can you bottle it for the rest of us?

Wish I could bottle it! We are plodders. We take our time. When I first started and learned I could print a book in a few weeks, I failed to understand that that is not "publishing." Publishing is not only printing but preparing the sales and marketing tracks well in advance of having hard copies available. So the ramp up is very important and towards that end we’ve spent years developing contacts and channels of communication so that when a new book comes out, our audience knows about it.

Quality is another thing we pride ourselves on. We find the best people to write what we hope are going to be the definitive books on the subject. That’s why Chris Vogler’s “The Writer’s Journey”, Steve Katz’ “Shot by Shot,” Judith Weston’s “Directing Actors” and dozens of our other books are classics and sell well year in and year out.

Our other ace is that we are filmmakers who essentially publish for ourselves. We ask, "what is it I don’t know that is essential to my skill set as a filmmaker"? When we get the answer we go out and create a book to answer that question. Our competitors are unable to do that. What we do for our readers is turn outsiders into insiders. It’s our goal to make our readers better writers, better filmmakers, better craftsmen so that their work will endure and the careers will grow. Our books are not about our authors but they are about our readers. We get book proposals from big name Hollywood producers and actors but we don’t publish their name-dropping war stories because this information does not empower our readers’ careers. We’ve been successful because we make our readers successful. Those who have read our books appreciate that. So what goes around, comes around.

2. On your website you mention something called “conscious media,” in relation to the new paradigm shifts taking place in publishing. What do you mean by this and how can writers participate in helping formulate this concept?

For years we’ve been publishing "how to" books. We’ve given screenwriters and filmmakers the tools to get it done. But now that you know how to make something, what are you going to make? The big question is “what are you doing and why? Who does it serve? How are you going to use these incredible powers"?

So "conscious media" refers not only to creating works that contribute meaningful to humanity but it also refers to the process of ‘awakening’ the consciousness of the media-maker. After all, writing and filmmaking bring others into a certain state of consciousness. To lead a reader or viewer to new insights and dimensions, the filmmaker has to be conscious, awake and able to access these spaces as well.

We’ve already published books that dip into this area such as “The Writer’s Journey," “Stealing Fire from the Gods," “Deep Cinema: Film as Initiation” and others. My recent film, “The Sacred Sites of the Dalai Lamas,” and my new film (currently in post), “The Shaman & Ayahuasca: Journeys into Sacred Realms,” explore these dimensions of consciousness. My not so secret agenda is to empower a generation of filmmakers who will in turn inspire, engage and create works that will contribute to humanity for years to come. It’s 5 minutes to midnight. The days of creating mindless drivel and eye-candy are over. It’s time to wake up.

3. Your company has developed an impressive list of titles for filmmakers, screenwriters, and aspiring film/TV artists. With so many books on the nuts and bolts of craft already in your back list, how do you make editorial decisions when a new story structure book crosses your desk, or another book on how to write great characters? This must be getting harder and harder. Who do you pick and to whom do you send that lovely rejection letter? Can you share some of your editorial process?

There are a million facets to the diamond. There is always another way to create meaningful content. Bodies of knowledge can be sliced and diced infinitely. What we are looking for are new ideas for media making books and other communication products. Sometimes we’ll have an idea and take it to an author. Other times our authors or prospective authors will pitch an idea. My job is to twist and turn an idea with the author until we are really clear on what the book is about. Once done, we let the author roll with it. We are not about doing derivative work. We want really fresh ideas that will turn on our audiences and inspire them in some way. I like to look to other disciplines and how those bodies of knowledge influence say screenwriting, storytelling or character development - subjects like psychology, the Enneagram, the chakra system, meditation, architecture, mythic structure and so on. The list is quite long. The possibilities endless.

4. It’s looking like 2010 is going to be the year of the e-book. Two thousand nine was good, but analysts are projecting 2010 to be 30-40% better. What role will e-books play in your company next year (or coming years) and how can authors respond to this new format to jump start writing careers? Also, will you be offering Kindle books in the future?

We expect about 15 of our books to go "live" on the Kindle and other platforms any moment now. It’s taken a long time to sort this out. We have another 50 titles that are being prepared for release right now. Amazon expects a 10% uptick in our revenues from e-books (and they usually under-estimate our growth). But we really don’t know what this move means. Amazon tells us that people like to have the hard copy in their library and an e-book copy on their portable devices so that e-book growth isn’t expected anymore to wipe out the traditional book. Did television wipe out the movies? Different platforms, different purposes and experiences.

5. Author platforms are all the rage. The days when publishers promote their new writers with marketing campaigns, signing tours, etc. are long gone (unless you’re Dan Brown or J.K. Rowling). Now we writers have to “do it ourselves” and the new media platform has become essential just to get a first-time deal with many agents or pubs. What does MWP require in the way of an author having his/her platform in place, prior to submitting proposals? Do you care? What platform components would you recommend as essential for any first time writer trying to get a presence on the web?

Success in publishing comes with a collaboration between authors and publishers. The more active and visible an author is – on any platform, the more noticeable his or her book will be. The late, great Blake Snyder was a master of promotion. He told people about his book anywhere, 24-7. I saw him not just work a room but work Chicago’s Ohare airport when we walked through there together to catch a plane. He had a 5-foot-high poster for “Save the Cat" and talked to everyone about his book! When he was frisked by security he was pitching! He formed screenwriting forums both online and in dozens of cities. He held seminars, gave lectures, interviews, had an inactive and daily updated website, a Facebook fan site, etc. He did it all. Of course publishers like authors who are very proactive. If you just sit around waiting to be discovered – you won’t be. 


6. Simon & Shuster recently introduced their new concept for hybrid media: the vook (part book, part interactive video). How do you think vooks and other hybrid formats are going to impact your business? These could have a major impact in the nonfiction and how-to markets (cookbooks, instructional, etc.). Since so many of your publications are instructional and/or how-to, will you be expanding into this area? And should writers who want to submit vookish proposals be comfortable doing so?

I think this is a very cool and appropriate concept – hybrid books. But until they are more established we’ll probably only dabble in it for the moment. (We’ve got a few of these in the works.) Sometimes its better to be second rather than first. Film books that teach filmmaking should be a no-brainer for this format but you still have to clear studio movies that you would use as examples and there’s the rub. They simply won’t play unless you are willing to spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars on clearances. So to license that kind of video material the math will never work. Still it’s a very exciting area that we are watching closely.


7. One last question on the sea change taking place in publishing; not that anyone knows where things will land. But, with books, nooks, Kindles, etc. the format zoo for new media is getting as bewildering as particle physics. At the end of the day its about the written word — or is it? Do you think the web’s influence here is just “flavor of the month” or is there no going back? Are books going the way of newspapers? What does it all mean? I hope you know!

Books are artifacts. They say something about their owners. They are part of our identity. When you sit down in Starbucks and read a book it identifies you. If you read from a Kindle it doesn’t or at least not in the same specific way. However, portable devices offer other advantages. If you are a doctor going to Africa to run a clinic you’ll take a Kindle loaded with your medical reference books rather than 500 lbs of books.

But I think you answered your own question – Kindle or hard copy – the reading experience has to deliver.

8. What new projects, initiatives, or hot, new writers are you developing for 2010?

We’ve got about 30 titles in the development and writing stages. We are contemplating a whole new line of books but its far too early to announce that. I’ll be finishing and releasing “The Shaman & Ayahuasca," which I shot in Peru, and next month am shooting a doc in Bali about the “unseen worlds." We’ve got some new things we’ll be doing with our website. But all this aside, we are plodders and will continue to carefully develop and nurture the best books we can.


9. What question should I have asked that I didn’t?

If you are traveling in space at the speed of light and you turn on your headlights, will anything happen? Thank you for your intelligent questions.