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: 4^th- 6^th 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!