Is this the best book trailer of the year or not?
Two months ago, the corner of the Internet devoted to books went crazy for actor Zach Galifianakis' appearance in a book trailer for John Wray's "Lowboy." Slumped on a red couch and drinking beer, Galifianakis pretended to be Wray. Wray sat on the other end of the couch, pretending to be a bright-eyed, Charlie Rose version of Galifianakis. As far as book trailers go, it had more Hollywood sheen ("The Hangover"!) and was softer-sell than most.
But was it the best book trailer of the year?
That may be determined at Melville House's first-ever Moby Awards. The independent publisher has decided that the strange and spotty field of book trailers needs some measure of success. Or is it failure? The awards, dedicated to the year's best and worst book trailers, will be presented in New York in May.
Judges for the awards will be OR Books publisher Colin Robinson, Slate's Troy Patterson, Jason Boog from GalleyCat, Megan Halpern from Melville House and me.
-- Carolyn Kellogg
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No way. The best book trailer in the past year was "Lady Vernon and Her Daughter" - totally professional in the look. Maybe a little on the longer side - 3 mins - but way above this one!
Posted by: Barb | April 29, 2010 at 02:27 PM
Gotta go w/1st comment. The Lady Vernon and Her Daughter trailer was a mini movie. Great editing job. No famous faces just skills.
Funniest - gotta give it up to Brad Meltzers clips of his family reading his pans for The Book of Lies
Hon mention - Trailer for The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott - starts out real good and then falls off but some funny stuff.
Posted by: Eleanor | April 29, 2010 at 07:29 PM
The best book trailer or not? NOT! But not bad. Most are music. Then narration accompanied by words on the screen. Best friends recruited to "act". Better examples?
Lady Vernon and Her Daughter - go w/Barb and Elenor. Completely different from just about every other one. A little movie.
Book Launch 2.0 - Dennis Cass did this one. Dont even know if its for his book or just a hilarious take on author PR - way funnier than Lowboy.
Wednesday Sisters - typical but w/some nice edits and looks professional
The Man Book - Typical - but i watched it all the way thru for the answer to the burning question - which urinal to pick?
What Happens in London - Looks like it cost nothing to make but a lot more watchable than most.
Posted by: T Schein | April 30, 2010 at 06:47 AM
Great posting. And what I great idea from Melville House. I submitted the trailer for my book of noir crime stories, Bad Juju & Other Tales of Madness and Mayhem, produced by the crazed but brilliant Hal Samples. Fyi, here's the YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9vcOKXF098
Posted by: Jonathan Woods | April 30, 2010 at 07:10 AM
The Dennis Cass one is HILARIOUS - not really a book trailer or at least i dont know the name of the book its supposed to plug but i was laughing so hard i had to play it over to hear everything. LOL!!!
Posted by: M. Positano | April 30, 2010 at 02:26 PM
Looking over the posts I have to agree that the Meltzer and Cass ones are LOL funny and miles above the Wray one. I would love to know if Cass wrote his - I am not a writer but even I get the LOL spin on author book promotion.
As for Lady Vernon book trailer it is almost in its own category - if you ever watch Project Runway when Heidi says how they only had a certain amount of money but made it look expensive - thats what I think of this one. Its got a "movie" look that most of the other ones dont have.
Posted by: I. Danner | May 01, 2010 at 05:23 AM