Book trailers are awful. Cutting room floor caliber b roll, amateurish music and stiff acting haphazardly put together to form disjointed dreadfulness. Who makes these things? The summer interns? Well you get what you pay for. I kept checking the timer "How many seconds left? Too many, can't take it." Click.  One I thought was going to be ok, but it was the ad before the trailer. They all made me resolve to remember these authors names and never read their work. Granted, I only looked at six, so maybe I missed the good ones.  The exception that proves the rule is "Super Sad True Love Story" which was a fun parody, making fun of the awfulness of book trailers. 

Not only are they painfully awkward, but the book trailers I watched were singularly unhelpful.  They gave me nothing that I couldn't have gotten from looking at the cover.  All they told me is that these authors have terrible taste in music and can't afford a real director. Which tells me nothing about their ability to write.  I could be wrong, maybe I should take a look at these books to see if they are as horrible as their trailers. Sure. I'll get around to that someday.

They can't all be this bad.  To check, I looked for trailers by authors who I know are media savvy; they have movies or tv shows.  Evidently those whose books are made into movies have the money to make good book trailers.  But who is the audience? We all know these authors well, we know when they have a new book out. 

I don't think that book trailers will always be this bad.  Fans are making lots of them, generating ideas and trends, and I am sure that will develop one day into something. I conducted a poll of two of my coworkers, neither of whom had heard of book trailers, and both of whom thought they were a great idea.  There is an audience, just waiting for something to watch.