Samhain Publishing Ltd. Weblog

Book Trailers

Though I think the term “book trailer” is copyrighted, so I’m just going to call them book videos.

There are several different ways to handle book videos as a promotional tool for books. I think they’re pretty fun, myself. I like the visual representation (outside of the cover, of course) of my book. Plus, there’s fun music. maybe this makes me a bit on the sick and twisted side that I like them so much, but that’s probably not surprising to anyone who knows me or has read any of my books. Sadly, I am an open book…I wish I had a little more mystery to me.

In any case, the big options I’ve seen are the Do It Yourself (DIY) method and the hire someone else to do it. Either way, you have to go through the same process. First, you usually pick the music that works for your book’s theme. Then you decide on the script for your trailer. Believe me, this is harder than it seems. It has to be broken out into tiny sentences that work with the pictures. Then you cruise a million and one stock photography sites to find the perfect pictures to work with your script. The final put-it-together-and-make-it-pretty part with transitions and matching the words and pictures to the music is handled by the hired person in the second option, and by you in the DIY option.

Samhain even has it’s own channel on YouTube were you can check out book videos for some of your favorite Samhain books. Check it out here

If you click on the “Read More,” you’ll find examples of different kinds of book videos I hunted up for your amusement.

The Men in My Life

I had an interesting discussion with one of the men in my life the other day. He—a friend who shall remain nameless to protect the innocent (though I’m not sure that applies to either on of us, but I digress)—was giving me a run down of all the ways in which love does not exist and that we fool ourselves into thinking we’re in love by long-term exposure to one person (or multiple people if you’re the polyamory type). What we really are, to his mind, is complacent and have just gotten used to our partners.

Then he asked the million dollar question that I seem to get from all my male acquaintances who know that I write romance (for the record, this includes brothers, father/grandfathers, uncles, and cousins—I dread the day one of my nephews is old enough to ask): Does my (bitter) opinion about relationship change how you’ll write your heroes in the future? I’m pretty much like every other guy, so if you’re really going make the men real…

My answer always seems to shock them.

No.

Why? Because while I do like to write real characters with real emotion, there’s still a certain level of fantasy to it. Not every guy is great in bed, a wonderful conversationalist, intelligent, charming, a total alpha male who’s also caring and compassionate, and loves puppies and children. Some are…but it’s not “every other guy.”

Then again, even the men who don’t have all those qualities can be pretty awesome. In fact, for some perverse reason, I often find I like the flaws better. I try to put some of those flaws in, but by the end of every book, even the most bitter of bachelor (or bachelorette) believes in love.

So, I might use the real men in my life for some inspiration while writing the fantasy men in my life…but, no, no matter how much they might want me to stick to reality as they see it, I’m still going to write my always-great-in-bed heroes. That’s what I call artistic license. Sorry, boys!