Zombie in a Wheelchair, Anyone?

Summer break is
over, and it’s time I got back to blogging more regularly. I’ll shoot for the
every-Sunday schedule I used to be on. I’ve missed hanging out with you here,
so I hope you’ll check in when you can.



A lot’s been
going on. I have Sammy reissue news (which I’ll get to in another post), new
book news (which will be fun to give you first scoop on), and other stuff
(which I can’t really talk about yet, but will as soon as I’m able—you know the
drill).





Let me start by
sharing that our son Connor graduated college in June with a degree in Business
and spent the summer here with us before relocating to Oregon (where he’s off
to a great start in the ranks of the employed). During the summer I was lucky
enough to have him work on a variety of projects for me. Our biggest
undertaking was book trailers.




A lot of people
kind of go, Huh? when I mention ‘book trailer’ so if that’s you, just know that
book trailers are a Thing, and have been for some time. They’re like a movie
trailer, only, you know, for a book.




There’s a
huge range of what book trailers are like. Some are big budget and look like movie
trailers. Some are just Movie Maker images of picture book art with words on
the screen. In children’s books the idea is basically either to a) get the
appropriate age group interested in reading the book, or b) get adults who buy
books for children / young adults interested in the book.




In schools,
many teachers and librarians “book-talk” titles to the students. They pick a
stack of books and give a quick summary of each story, trying to spark interest
or help students determine which book(s) to check out.




In addition to
book talking (or sometimes in place of it) educators will show book trailers to
get the kids excited. Book trailers can be beautiful, intriguing, funny, or a
total snooze. It’s pretty amazing, the variety.




They’re also
all over the map length-wise. It depends on the age / maturity of the viewer,
of course, but I’m a believer in shorter being better (and I suspect that the
teachers/librarians showing the trailers would agree).




Sometimes
publishers will put together a book trailer for a title, but as with much in
book promotion these days, the onus often falls upon the author to create one. If you think a
book trailer is going to help your book, you’ll likely have to pull one
together yourself. Because picture books are illustrated, you’ve got a lot of
visuals to work. With a novel? That’s a whole different story.




The way Connor
developed a vision for a trailer for my upcoming novel, The Secret Life of Lincoln Jones, was by making me talk about the
book. Even though he already knew, he asked me to describe to him what the book is about, why I wrote it, how it
affected me, what I saw as its purpose in the world…things like that.




When he was
done nudging answers out of me, he determined that we needed to do two
trailers. One of me talking—like I just had with him, and another that would
capture the interest and imagination of the primary audience: 4th- 6th
graders.





Yes, that's the Tattletale Toilet on screen.


The Secret Life
of Lincoln Jones is a story about some serious things. Like escaping abuse, dealing
with Alzheimer’s, and struggling to rise out of poverty. But it’s told from the
perspective of an eleven-year-old boy and has chapter titles like “Tattletale
Toilet,” “Zombie in a Wheelchair,” “The Admiral in Undies,” “One-Eyed Jack,”
and “Hush Money Trouble.”




How do you effectively
reduce such disparate elements to a one-minute video?




The answer is
not short, and it’ll only makes sense once you watch the trailer. So I’ll end
here with a link to the book trailer and return next Sunday with some stories
about getting the footage (which, yes, includes a “zombie in a wheelchair.”)




So here are the links! At the end of the
book trailer you’ll see a video insert for the interview trailer—me talking
about why I wrote Lincoln Jones. I hope you’ll watch both and tell me what you
think.




It’s good to be
back. Thanks for visiting. I’ll see you in the comments!