What? You Don't Talk About Books At Wedding Receptions?

The family wedding I attended this weekend had a library theme. There were references to the bride and groom's bookish ways in a reading done by a librarian (or an archivist--there were a number of library and library-like people there) during the ceremony. The seating chart  and table numbers at the reception were organized around the Dewey Decimal System. Guests filled out traditional library book cards and placed them into a guest book filled with pockets to hold them.

So it was totally appropriate that in between all the merrymaking my niece, Becki, and I went over our reading. I will admit I started the whole thing when I nagged her about the Jane Eyre/Rebecca-related books I got her for Christmas and how knowledge of all things Jane Eyre will enhance her reading life. (I recently read The Likeness by Tana French and am sure I saw a Rebecca thing going on there. My life was enhanced.)

Yeah, Becki directed the conversation elsewhere. To Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor, to be exact. She has a friend who's a big fan of the series, and Becki and I have read all the books as well. We both agreed that by the third one we were totally into Liraz and Ziri. Personally, I no longer remember the main characters' names.

Becki liked  The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater, which I haven't read. (My niece is reading beyond me. My job as an aunt is done.) We both liked Shiver and, again, were in agreement that Stiefvater has created some fantastic book trailers. Fantastic.

Then we went on to The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer, a series I got Becki started on when I gave her Cinder. I'm afraid I got her excited when I told her the last book was out. When I checked yesterday, I found I was wrong. It doesn't come out until November. I was able to direct her to Fairest, in the meantime.

I suspect Becki and I were the only ones who carried the theme as far as we did. But I don't think we went over-the-top. Though, to be quite honest, I don't know what over-the-top would be.

"Saving The Planet & Stuff" Is Now An eBook

Yes, finally, the eBook edition of Saving the Planet & Stuff has been published and is available for both Kindle and Nook.

I believe my first mention of this project here at OC was on March 1 of 2012 (when we hadn't yet settled on the spelling "eBook"), so it has been very, very close to a year that the Saving the Plant eBook has been in the works. Go back to Saturday's post on publishing to get an idea of what we've been dealing with while I've been trying to juggle other work-related tasks that are in various stages and my computer guy/publishing partner has been holding down a full-time job.

You'll continue to hear about my experiment in self-publishing as I work on promoting this title over the coming months. In the meantime, look at what we did! A book trailer!

Yeah, I Needed To See This Article Related To Book Trailers

An article called Are Book Trailers Effective? at what is now Build Book Buzz quoted a Wall Street Journal article on the subject. "There is scant evidence . . . that the average book trailer actually has much impact on book sales."

Yikes.

Hey, but that post and that article are both four years old. Everything's changed since then, right? Besides, my book trailer will be above average. And that article wasn't about above average book trailers, now was it?

You Will Probably Be Hearing A Lot About Book Trailers Here

I am planning a book trailer for the new e-book edition of Saving the Planet & Stuff. Evidently you can train for the Olympics in less time than it takes to make a book trailer. And, as with so much that writers do regarding self-promotion, there's not a lot of evidence that you get much return on investment. However, when I originally decided to publish this e-book, back before I realized that my e-book editions are my back list and valuable for that reason, one of my goals was to learn new promotional/marketing...things. And trailers, worthwhile or not, are a new promotional/marketing...thing.

So far, I've looked at book trailers and read The Book Trailer Manual by Darcy Pattinson. I've looked at more book trailers, reread Saving the Planet & Stuff, and created a log of juicy bits and dialogue. I've come up with a few trailer ideas and looked at book trailers. Now I'm working on a storyboard and looking at book trailers.

A family member sent me The Big Tease: Trailers Are a Terrific Way to Hook Kids on Books in School Library Journal, which includes...trailers! I've also stumbled upon 7 Brilliant Book Trailers at Brain Pickings. Most of these were too long for my taste. I am already firmly in the school of "keep 'em under a minute and a half." But I wanted to bring your attention to the first one, for Maurice Gee's Going West. I was drawn to that because I was so taken, years ago, by Gee's book, The Fat Man. The trailer for Going West is visually stunning. I have to say, though, that while I was riveted to the images, I barely noticed the soundtrack. Someone was reading something. That's all I can tell you. Is that good? Is that bad? At any rate, I now know Gee wrote a book called Going West, which I didn't know yesterday.

As happens whenever I am involved in something for work, you can be sure I will keep yammering about it here. In the meantime, if anyone wants to recommend a book trailer, feel free to do so in the comments.

What Did We Learn Today?

I spent a chunk of today researching book trailers with Darcy Pattinson's The Book Trailer Manual. I own this on Kindle. I like to mark up my nonfiction books while reading them, so I learned how to highlight and make notes on Kindle. While I was at it, I learned how to make collections so I could organize some of the e-books I now own.

I feel as if I've accomplished something, but it was also quite painless. Those two experiences don't usually come together, I've found.