CK Fiction

Recently, I had the opportunity to record an excerpt from Crossroads for a new podcast called Authors Read, where you guessed it, authors read excerpts from their works.  I think it’s a really cool concept, and I was excited to be selected to be featured.  I’ve always toiled with the idea of trying to record an audio book version of Crossroads in my own voice, since the narrative of the story is essentially told through my point of view and with my own personal speech patterns and quirks.

Luckily, I have a friend who has his own podcast (One Hour Wasted), and has a nice setup for recording.  Even better still, he was willing to assist me with recording my reading.  I read two chapters, and it took three hours of recording/editing before my thirteen minute segment was completed.  The recording quality was top-notch.  My performance on the other hand…yikes.  Overall it was a great learning experience, and the episode was just released!  You can follow the link here to find the podcast and here for the website.  I’m hoping to follow-up with a reading from Crossfire once it’s released, so stay tuned for part 2!

So it turns out book trailers are a thing.  Now I’m not talking about a trailer full of books.  No, that would be a bookmobile.  Stay with me here – it’s a movie trailer but for a book.  I know, it seems so simple now, doesn’t it?  It also seems kind of silly to create video footage and visuals for an otherwise non-visual medium.  Books are meant to engage your imagination and put your mind’s eye to work, right?  Well there lies the challenge.

Once I was introduced to the concept, it also compelled my hyperactive brain to see what I could come up with.  At the core, book trailers are intended to help build hype surrounding a title that is coming soon or newly released.  Similarly to a movie trailer, you just want to tease your audience without giving anything away.  A major difference between the two though, is casting.  In a movie, it’s all about who is starring in it.  I suppose the same could be said for a book, but in a completely different way.  Fictional characters should be up to the reader to imagine and picture in their mind, so a book trailer needs to be very careful not to provide any distinct, identifying information.  You want to use overly generic footage, or B-roll if you will, so the reader is still free to imagine things as they see fit.  The tricky part then is creating a trailer that doesn’t provide any distinct features, doesn’t give away any details, yet still somehow manages to draw in and captivate the audience.  Suddenly it doesn’t seem so simple, huh?  Well needless to say, based on the title of this post, I decided to give it my best effort. Continue reading →