1st Turning Point

Posted By John Klawitter on November 13, 2009

John Klawitter, Author, Screenwriter, Director

by John Klawitter
1st Turning Point Staff Columnist
Copyright © 2009 John Klawitter

I have some strong and probably unfounded opinions about book trailers, that is, videos made as promos to sell new books.  I say ‘unfounded’ because it’s a basic rule that if something is working, don’t complain about it.  Be that as it may, my suspicion is that, no matter how much your friends gush about the new video you’ve commissioned to sell your latest work as it comes hot and full of juicy promise off the press, the results quite often aren’t worth the effort or the cost.  One can probably do just as well or better by joining IWOFA author’s group and paying $120 for 1/16th of a double page spread in Realms of Fantasy.  I could be wrong; let me rattle on a little bit, and then you tell me what you think. 

Some of my problems are with the general format of the ordinary book trailer.  This tried-and-stale formula, currently used by almost all videos constructed to pitch book sales, is essentially the old Silent Movies Format.  The story is told with art cards or ’supers’, that is, lines of storytelling type superimposed over background pictures or pictures meant to represent the characters in the book, and sometimes cuts of action, and there’s background music to establish an appropriate mood, maybe suspense or romance or thrilling action, and dubious software special effects like smoke or laid-over rain.  After a minute or so of this storytelling, the presentation is tagged off with a call to action, usually the web addy where interested readers may purchase the book. 

Although there are some positives to commend this formula, overall (in my opinion) the approach tends to be boring and predictable.  One positive I’ve found, the presentation generally moves along slowly enough for people who mumble while they read.  And branding the title and providing a clear call to action is a nice thing-indeed, these are necessary ingredients, vital to any success.

But for the rest, staying the course through an entire book trailer is like watching a snail on crutches humping its tortured way across a sidewalk.  Pity, too, because it doesn’t have to be that way.

The first and best escape from this foot-dragging format is to create from the concept of your story idea rather than rattle on about the story itself.  How?  Well, let’s take a bad example, one of my own novels, The Trouble With Fat Boy, the first in my Hollywood Havoc thrillers.  If I were going to create the standard dull book trailer, I would start with BG shots of various studios, on-the-lot shots of stage exteriors, stage scenes, maybe Grauman’s Chinese Theater,  a director directing a one camera shoot, the Hollywood sign, the street sign “Hollywood & Vine”  My first art card would say, “Low-budget producer Matt “Hollywood” Havoc has a problem.”  Here I might show shots of Matt looking up from a bad salad at Jerry’s Famous Deli, Matt arguing with a critic and the guy who cuts his lawn, Matt complaining to a sexy star.  Second art card:  It’s not just the critics complaining about his crappy movies or his ex-wife, superstar Joy Benefite, complaining about the alimony…”  Shots of Matt running down dark alleys, chased by bad guys with guns.  “Matt has gotten on the bad side of some Muslim terrorists intent on destroying the movie business.”  Blah, blah, blah, and so on. 

If you want to write a concept-driven book trailer, you have to start with the story, but not tell it-you have to tease it while presenting the interest factors, the sizzle and the dazzle, the reason why potential readers will have to read your book. 

So maybe you start with a single photograph or drawing.  Open tight on Matt Havoc’s eyes.  He looks strained, nervous.  Begin a slow pullback to reveal Matt has duct tape over his mouth.  Pullback continues and we see he is tied to a chair.  Pullback continues and we see the chair is hanging by a rope.  Pullback to see we are watching, actually looking up from across the street…the chair is dangling from the top of a tall building.  Now, in this trailer there are no art cards.  A voice-over narrator says, “Matt Havoc doesn’t have to worry any more.  The nasty things critics are saying about his low-budget exploitation flicks don’t bother him.  Not even the shouting matches with his sexy superstar ex-wife can get him down.  But he does have one problem.  He’s made a really, really bad enemy, and it looks like he’s headed for a fall.” 

Here we cut in close to Matt, in the bottom of the frame, looking up.  And in the top of the frame, looking down, is a well-dressed man with an unpleasant smile on his face and a knife in his hand, ready to cut the rope.  And then you do the branding and the call to action, and fade to black. 

I know the old arguments that the product is a book and readers are different and special because they have to know more about the story.  I don’t buy that.  I think that’s in large part an excuse for not finding a way to record a narration track so one might get rid of the old fashioned ‘art card’ technique.  I would urge authors to inspire their trailermakers to present more of the style, the meaning and the flavor of their stories without giving away so much of the plot line. 

And, don’t forget that other plus-this format provides a great way to brand your authorship, to use that line about yourself that you put after your name on all your emails.

My friend Charles Glenn was in charge of marketing at Paramount when they released Love Story.  You know the plot line: Super rich dude falls in love with and marries ordinary girl, they live a life where the adjustments they both must face are overcome by their love…at least until they find out she’s sick and dying.  Believe me, they tried every way to make that story special, but the trailers just lay there, limp as old cheesecake.  Charles swears the successful marketing of that picture all boiled down to one brief but unforgettable concept line: Love means never having to say you’re sorry.  We tried the same thing with the line, Is it safe? for Marathon Man, showing Dustin Hoffman in jeopardy, running, running, running. 

When I was at Disney, I thought we often gave away too much about a picture.  I hated building the 3 minute “full trailers”, preferring the 60 to 90 second tease trailers.  It’s the same thing as a book–if you give away too much of your story, you’ll lose a percentage of your audience.  And if you’re writing genre, it is even more important that you find a point of significant difference between your romance, your sci-fi story, your western romance, your slick chick lit tale of sex and lust in urbania, whatever.  And, frankly, I believe the better way to communicate the unique interest and readability of your particular book is by finding a concept or set of parallel concepts that hook your reader’s interest. 

Now let’s be a little tougher on me.  I talk a mean game, but where the hell is my example of a book trailer that I’ve done to demonstrate the worth of my big-mouth ideas?  Well, I’m doing a video campaign for Twisted Tails, J. Richard Jacobs’ acclaimed series of sci-fi/fantasy/horror anthologies.  If you fish around on the web, you can find three or four book trailers for the various Twisted Tails books in the series.  They’re not particularly bad trailers, but every one of them follows the same old-fashioned ’storytelling’ format, presenting a hodge-podge of as many story lines of the stories as can be told before losing the attention of the potential reader. 

You won’t find this in my campaign, which consists of two trailers.  The first, a pure tease trailer, is about a minute in length and features a uniquely driving and appropriately fantastical song which drives home the Twisted Tails brand, and visuals that are a fast-paced montage of fantasy, sci-fi and horror images, together with visual branding of Twisted Tails.  This trailer is currently running on YouTube and you can see it there by typing in TWISTED TAILS TEASER or watch it below.  

The second trailer is about two minutes long.  It uses the same images and music from the tease, but intercuts it with pictures of the book covers and copy points by a voice-over narrator, all this followed by title and call to action and the tag line, TWISTED TAILS, because you never know where the tail may lead. 

Will it work?  Nobody knows for sure.  But advance interest from the tease running on YouTube has been very strong, so I’m pretty confident we can move a considerable hunk of Tail.

Hollywood Havoc: The Trouble with Fat Boy by John Klawitter ISBN-10: 1-55404-582-7 ISBN-13: 978-1-55404-582-2 eBook Length: 210 Pages Imprint: Double Dragon Publishing Clever and energetic Matt Havoc thought he’d seen everything. As long-time assistant to B-movie Hollywood film mogul Vinnie Berger, he’s learned to think quick and move fast. But when his quirky old neighbor goes into business with Nigerian scam artists who just may be terrorists, Matt finds himself a player in a deadly plot with more twists than one of Vinnie’s movies. As if that wasn’t enough, both a new love and a gorgeous and sexy ex-wife come back into Matt’s life at the same time. Something has to give—or does it? After all, this is Tinseltown, where survival is an art form and you’re only good as your last picture. Winner of the 2009 Eppie for Best Action/Adventure

Hollywood Havoc: The Llama Goes Up by John Klawitter ISBN-10: 1-55404-632-7 ISBN-13: 978-1-55404-632-4 eBook Length: 226 Pages Imprint: Double Dragon Publishing The 2nd novel in the award winning HOLLYWOOD HAVOC series by Tinseltown writer and director John Klawitter, author of the widely acclaimed TINSEL WILDERNESS: Lessons on Survival in Hollywood & Other Extreme Climates. Matthew “Hollywood” Havoc, seasoned writer and producer of schlock “B” movies for Berger Royal Pictures, has inadvertently made an enemy of terrorist Shamseen Usudman. As Matt goes about prepping his next picture, Carnage Daze, with a mysterious French financier, Matt discovers the dangerous and violent Shamseen is still very much trying to kill him. After several attempts on his life, Matt agrees to loan out his services to a movie being filmed in Oregon, a movie starring his ex-wife, the sexy and unpredictable Joy Benefeté. His boss, Vinnie Berger, laughingly agrees to let him go, arguing Joy will have him back in bed in no time and Matt could use the sex to calm him down. But matters turn deadly when Shamseen’s men engineer a terrifying accident that nearly kills him. The luminous Joy does manage to seduce her way back into Matt’s life, and he returns to Los Angeles just in time to work on a dangerous and difficult aerial shoot for Carnage Daze starring a helicopter named Llama…

Categories: All authors, Book Videos, John Klawitter, Marketing
Tags: love story, the trouble with fat boy, tinsel wilderness, twisted tails teaser