Cheap Entertainment
I’m getting excited for summer reading season. Memories of scholastic book order catalogs floating around the classroom are dancing in my head, as are fantasies of reading books on blankets in the sun, swimming pools, and working on my tan. Being a little bit older and wiser I thought I’d take a better stab at not judging books by their covers by doing a little research to see if any of my favorite authors had new books coming out.
I think the answer is no. Let me tell you after many wasted hours trying to navigate authors’ and publishing houses’ websites and I think I figured out part of why people don’t read anymore. It is a lot of work to navigate through all the crap out there. Thinking back to Marcus’s post about what author’s make hourly I understand why not a lot of money is being dropped on advertising, I really do but really how are we, the consumer, supposed to know what to buy if no one tells us what they are selling in a way that will reach us? The way things work now book sales seem to rely almost entirely on covers, good placing in books stores, and mainly word of mouth/required reading lists.
A quarter of the population did not read a book last year, not one, but can we be surprised? I bet if you asked people how many movies they watched it would just be ridiculous. Why aren’t we selling the obvious, that books are pretty darn cost effective ways to entertain ourselves. An average book costs what twenty bucks for maybe two hundred pages? If you figure three minutes a page (depending on reader and the work) that is ten solid hours of entertainment for only twenty bucks. If you share the book with a buddy it’s only a dollar per hour of stimulation, plus factor in time you spend discussing the book with your buddy and it’s practically free. Movies on the other hand cost something like twelve dollars to see them on the big screen for maybe two hours, five dollars to rent, and if you want to buy them it’s more like twenty dollars. I really did see Zombieland on sale for $19.38. Possibly that’s a forty dollar investment for one movie. Outrageous! But people are buying it because every time they turn on their computer or their TV there is an advertisement telling them to buy it and where to buy it despite how illogical it is. But to find out what books are coming out, you have to wait for possibly years before you here someone tell you to read it. If we could even come close in advertising books the way we advertise for movies, highlight the cost effectiveness I bet people would read at least one book a year and I would know how to shape my pool reading list.
I’m starting to see James Patterson and Nora Roberts doing commercials for their books and there are a lot of “book trailers” out there, especially on YouTube and on authors’ websites. Maybe this is the new way to get the word about books out. I think we should have authors be opening acts at other more popular forms of art. Why not have a local author read part of their work before a movie or a rock concert? Or, when a big name author comes to town, have local authors open for him or her.
I could swear that when I was at the Garland a couple months ago I saw an advertisement for Jess Walter’s new book. Not sure if that’s really the right crowd to advertise to, but maybe.
The problem, I think, is that literature doesn’t easily translate to visual media. I’m not sure how you’d create a 30-second spot out of a 200-page book. I guess you wouldn’t have to necessarily use the book’s content (that is, act out a scene). Asa, do you know if the Patterson/Roberts ads are online anywhere? I’d be interested in seeing those.
I do think that the kind of motion poems Amanda talked about a while ago are incredibly interesting. If I saw the “The God of our farm had blades” video on television during a commercial break of a basketball game, I’d be blown away because A)it’s very, very different from most advertising, and would attract my attention, and B)it’s freakin’ fantastic. If nothing else, you’d get a couple thousand website hits, and that’s never bad. Of course, the real issue is what kind of publisher has that kind of advertising budget? Television advertising is wicked expensive, especially when you’re talking about a national program and not a local PBS affiliate. But I’d like to see it done once.
As for the value argument of a book against a movie, I don’t think there’s any question that most people who like to read will agree that it’s cheaper for the entertainment value than film, but those aren’t the people you need to reach.
I’d like to work with what Asa’s talking about, except expand it so you’re not just having writers read at readings. I like the idea of at a concert or theater, but also during inter-quarter breaks at ball games, on escalators in the mall, or showing motion poems during television programs, etc. Places you would not expect to find literature, you know? Writers sort of live in a self-imposed exile from everyday life, and when one is brave enough to step out of the shadows, we always think it’s interesting/innovative. Also terrifying, and absolutely necessary.
So, people, where would you not expect to hear someone read a poem or have a book advert? Preferably places that would also attract attention.
Check out this video promoting Jess Walter’s latest book: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1205959622369
I wonder if this is the advertisement you saw, Marcus. I actually think places like the Garland Theater are the best places to advertise books. You’ve got a captive audience who are obviously into being entertained, so why not show them an awesome book that will keep them away from boredom for many, many hours? Plus, this is a cool little video. It made me even more interested in the book than I already am. Damn advertising!
I just realized that you have to log in to Facebook to see that Jess Walter video. Sorry!
No, unfortunately what I saw at the Garland was just a blurry slide with a picture of the book cover and Jess Walter’s head.
I’ve seen that video before, though, and I think it’s one of the better book trailers I’ve seen. It could easily be cut to thirty seconds and used as a tv spot, too.
I think part of the problem of advertising books to people at movies is that, well, they’re at the movies, and being a theater with enough speaker power to shudder the building is a far cry from sitting at home on a chair in the quiet, reading a book. Which is not to say it can’t be done, just that the fact that you have a bunch of people in one place does not necessarily mean it’s a good place to advertise a book. I don’t think most people at the movies will make the connection that a book will keep them entertained for hours (a book? what’s that?), because the mindset is so different. That said, if we’re talking about a video advertisement (like the video you linked to), you’ve got a better chance, because it plays on a lot of the kind of sensational things that happen in the book rather than the page-by-page narrative and writing. You’ve got a cop car, craziness, financial ruin, and a dead-looking body all in 30 seconds. So I think this emphasizes that you don’t want to go up to a crowd and say, “Hey, this is a book! It’s good! Read it!” because people will be like, “Books are boring!”
But if you get their attention first (and you may have to placate to the taste of the masses a little, unfortunately) and then tell them you’re talking about a book, you’ve then established the train of thought in their heads that goes, “Hey, that’s interesting. Hey, that’s a book. Hey, an interesting book; that’s a good idea.” Instead of “Hey, that’s a book. Wait, I don’t like books because they’re boring. I’m not going to listen to whatever else this person is saying.”
I’m not sure if I made a point anywhere. Probably not. I like the idea of advertising to people when you’ve got their attention, but you have to do it in the right order, I think.