Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Book Trailers and Marge's Sisters

I've had laryngitis for about a week now. On the off chance that my voice actually works, I sound like a combination of Patty and Selma from the Simpsons. But since talking makes my throat hurt, I've been trying to "rest my voice so it can heal" like the internet told me.

As far as I can remember, this is the longest I've ever been voiceless. Getting people's attention is hard. Once I have it, they either can't hear me or can't understand me, so I have to repeat myself 27 times. If I want to order a sandwich, the best way to go about it is to write down what I want and let whoever I'm with order for me. But then the person taking the order glances at me suspiciously the whole time I'm standing there, like there must be something seriously wrong with me or I'd order my own sandwich.

These things make me grumpy. They make me wish I owned a rubber band gun.

But then I think about the people who can't speak at all, and I feel bad. Kind of like when I get the hiccups and it reminds me of those people who've had the hiccups for 12 years. When I get them, I worry maybe I'll have the hiccups for 12 years, and I'll end up going on a talk show to let people try to cure me with comic results. Only it wouldn't be funny. Not to me. Then, after I stop hiccupping, I feel bad about those people who can't stop.

This is getting tangent-y and weird. Moving on... Book trailers. There are quite a few on YouTube so it's nothing new, but I didn't even know book trailers existed until today. I'm not sure if I like them. They sound like a great idea, but of the ones I watched, none made me want to read the book. In fact, one made me not want to read a book that I was considering.

Part of it is probably the production quality. And movies have it easy in that all they really have to do is show scenes from the movie. Plus there's usually a lot less going on in the plot of your average movie than there is in the plot of your average novel, so there's less to talk about. I can see how they'd be good for getting new readers interested in an ongoing series.

Anyway, cool idea. Maybe they just need to have more effort put into them? They have potential though; I'll give them a thumbs up.

2 comments:

Carrie Harris said...

Yeah, I saw a trailer recently that shall remain nameless, and I'm interested in the book and plan to read it, but the trailer? It was kinda meh. The voiceover was really amature.

LauraBlue said...

That's the same thing I noticed. I'm surprised it's not easier to make them better, but then again I don't actually know how to do any of that stuff, so it's probably harder than I expect. Like many things in life.