I’ve noticed something cropping up, that books are now beginning to use cinematic trailers as though like a film. There tends to exist a general skepticism towards book trailers. A trailer, in a way, violates a book’s very construction. We are taught from a young age that reading, unlike pretty much everything else, forces you to use your imagination. A trailer inherently removes an element of the imaginative process and potentially cheapens the medium by suggesting a sort of inadequacy.
One of my favourite illustrators, Jon Klassen, uses them for the following stories.
I Want My Hat Back
This Is Not My Hat
And what about Irvine Welsh’s much anticipated prequel to ‘Trainspotting’ in ‘Skagboys‘…
There is always that line crossing between books and technology, whether books will become obsolete. But really I think technology can help books become more wide-spread, widely read and accessible to anyone.
The purpose of a book trailer, ultimately, is to bring attention and readers to a book and its author. So if it succeeds in doing so, one could argue it’s keeping the medium alive, not destroying it. Traditional media always flounders when it doesn’t evolve to meet changing preferences. If people need moving images to get excited or curious about something, then why not?
Ron McCallum: How technology allowed me to read
Technology and books are only helping to advance reading. For example take 63 year old Ron McCallum, blind from birth, and always on the outskirts of bedtime stories, wanting to hear, touch and be able to read the books his siblings read. Yet growing up, thanks to technological advances he is now able to engage with the books he dreamed of being able to read – from braille, to audio books, tape recorders and speech synthesisers- he can now be a part of that warmth and closeness from reading with family and friends.
Thanks to combining technology and books, Ron is now one of Australia’s most respected industrial and discrimination lawyers and a prominent human rights advocate, the head United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
Don’t judge a book by its trailer.
Cutting the mustard. 