Janice MacDonald's Blog: Notes on writing - Posts Tagged "promotion"

Once upon a time, an overly tall, inelegant, self-conscious girl backed away from the world of theatre because the lure of writing prose seemed so much safer and less judgmental. For months and indeed years, she pecked away in sublime anonymity at her keyboard, unbothered by the need for eyeliner or beauty balm or retinol. Exercise could be embarked on for the sake of her arteries and chosen on the basis of whether it was fun, instead of working ten extra pounds off for a camera or to get into a slinky, one-digit size. Shopping could be a glorious Value Village adventure; the basilisks of the boutique shops could be avoided.

Books were published, radio interviews were welcomed, the occasional signing appearance was endured. Panels and conferences where she met readers or other authors were even rather fun. Every now and then, though, a newspaper photo or television segment reminded her of the reasons why the solitary writing life was such a blessing.

So, imagine her horror to discover a relatively new phenomenon... the book trailer. For those of you even less in the loop than our solitary scribbler, I am not referring to a mobile library van. A book trailer, mimicking a movie trailer, is a filmed commercial promoting a newly published or upcoming book. Who thought these were a good idea? Gore Vidal? Naomi Wolf? Tori Spelling?

In this world of music videos, YouTube and television supremacy, I can understand the impulse to sell books through visual means, but surely just this once, we can avoid the audio-visual sales technique? After all, people are already trained to "wait for the movie." Shilling the world of the fabricating imagination through the medium which replaces it with presupposed parameters cannot be a healthy fit. And before I get any backlash from auteur filmmakers, let me see you getting on the other side of the clapboard first.

My children will remind me that in the past I have ridiculed cellphone texting, snowblowers and mechanical pencils. They are likely right and for all I know you will likely see me one of these days, through the magic of YouTube, promoting my latest mystery. It's a new world; I get it. However, if I'm going to have to start competing with the literary equivalent of Christina Aguilera, I'm going to have to invest in a different moisturizer and get cracking on those upper arm exercises. Because it seems like aspiring to be the literary equivalent of Rosemary Clooney just ain't gonna cut it anymore.

And for what it's worth, I still buy wooden pencils.