Book Trailers: Two More Worth Watching

I posted about book trailers yesterday with a somewhat disparaging comment about how often they fail to sell me on the titles in question, but it would be fairer to say that as with any promotional device, there are hits and misses. Here are two more trailers that totally won me over. It's interesting that one looks very elaborately produced (lots of photoshop, animation, original art--all brilliantly executed), and one could hardly be simpler. But both, I think, are highly effective.

Book Trailers: From the Sublime to the Sublimely Ridiculous

While I firmly believe that publishers need to make greater use of the internet for marketing, I am often skeptical of video book trailers. Few of them have actually made me want to go buy a book. But occasionally one succeeds brilliantly. This one, from the New Zealand Book Council for Maurice Gee's Going West, is so dazzling you almost wonder whether the book can live up to it. But it was enough to make me order a copy.

On the other hand, it seems almost superfluous to create a trailer for Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, Quirk Books' followup to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. They had me at "Sea Monsters." Still, if you've sat through enough hours of Masterpiece Theater, this bit of Regency gone awry is hard not to enjoy:



Do you think trailers are effective at selling books? Let me know about examples that you think have done the job.