Finding books to buy: Just one more way the Internet is changing my habits
I've noticed this happening a lot lately, where authors (or agents) have videos trailers put together for books. It's interesting, because typically books don't have a lot of visuals other than the cover art nor any audio, so everything has to be done from scratch more or less. Here is a recent one for Brooke Taylor's book, "Undone," that I am waiting for.
You can go to YouTube and search for book trailer if you are curious to see how others are doing it, too.
It's also interesting because it goes to how much the Internet has changed book promotions, at least in my experience. Most authors have Web sites now (which tend to get more polished as they start selling), and many of them post first chapters, which I love. (Much better than reading the first few pages of a book in a bookstore, which is what I tend to do when deciding.)
You can also find a lot of authors on Facebook, Myspace, Livejournal, Shelfari, LibraryThing, just about anywhere people who read congregate. I've friended some of my favorite authors, and on Livejournal, I've even had dialogues with three of them on numerous occasions, about books, world events, Doctor Who, you name it. I think that's one things fans really like -- accessibility -- knowing that if you post a comment telling them what you thought of their latest book, you know they've read it, and they've often replied. And stuff like that will keep me loyal and buying their books, even through a sophomore slump or dry spell, to authors like Shanna Swendson, Vicki Pettersson and Joel Rosenberg.
And one of my more recent sources of finding new books to buy are blogs -- two in particular have led to many purchases on Amazon that I can ill-afford: "Pub Rants," a fun, informative blog by a literary agent whose clients I really like, and "Smart Bitches, Trashy Books," which is pretty much just what it sounds like.