This Just In - for the 100th time.

So here's the news. It's not news when advertising works. But for some reason our industry continues to be amazed by something that every other industry has always known.

Over at Galleycat is a story about a book that rocketed to Amazon bestseller status over the weekend when the movie trailer for an upcoming movie based on that book was advertised to tens of millions of movie goers.The post  is called One Trailer, One Weekend, One Bestseller.

And I can imagine the hoards of writers wringing their hands over their keyboards now - thinking - oh if only I could have the right trailer, I too could be a bestseller.

Wrong.

The solution to book sales are not book trailers - the solution to book sales is exposure of the book via newsletters, or ads in print vehicles, or on TV, or the Internet or the radio or through PR.

Back to trailers. Just because you make one doesn't mean anyone will get to see it.

Remember book trailers are  commercials. And  the challenge with trailers is the same as with any commercial. What media to buy to air it?

Media is expensive but we can prove over and over and over that getting the message out there is more than 50% of the job. What the message is matters of course - but not as much as simply getting it out there.

It's worth repeating. The solution to book sales is exposure. From any one of a dozen ways. Trailers are one. But so is a newsletter with  100,000 dedicated fans. So is 100 bloggers falling in love with the book.

If no one knows your book exists they won't buy it. And if you are counting on a trailer to help sell the book but no one  sees it - it won't sell the book. Very very few - less than 0.001% of trailers become viral. They need to hit a tipping point of over 30,000 views to go to that next level. That's really hard to do.

Back to what happened this weekend.

Yes, when you expose millions of people to an ad, hundreds of thousands of people will respond to it.

The problem with  book sales isn't that there aren't enough great books - or even enough readers - it's  that there isn't enough money to let enough people know about many of those books. It's not that there aren't good trailers its how to get them in front of the captive audience in that movie theater.

We've proved advertising works. It's just a question of having the money to do the advertising. And there, as they say, is the rub.

Comments

[David J. Montgomery]

I think this is right on. Thanks for explaining it so clearly.

[John43]

yep right on :) nice website. thx

[Clive Young]

Underlining your point is the fact that numerous Watchmen enthusiasts have made "fan films"--unauthorized, amateur movies based on pop culture material--based on the book. While some were actually well-made (I analyzed a few on my fan film blog, fancinematoday.com), none of them were shown on 4,000-plus movie screens just before the biggest hit of the year, and consequently, could never have had the impact of that movie/book trailer. For me, however, the trailer’s effectiveness was measured in my wife’s reaction--I’ve told her for years that she should give the book a try, but after the trailer, she turned to me and remarked, “you know, I ought to read that before the movie comes out.”