Drama! Why Making Book Trailers is Like Making Movies

Go onto YouTube and key in the phrase “book trailer” and you’ll be confronted by page after page of short films, mostly advertising fiction aimed at children and teenagers. Until 2010 when my latest book — a non-fiction espionage saga entitled Rendezvous at the Russian Tea Rooms — was commissioned, I had no idea about the existence of book trailers. I first heard about them from my then-editor who assured me that we needed to create just such a promotional film. His unswerving belief in their commercial effectiveness led me to watch several dozen of them. Not an experience I’d recommend.