The emphasis on appeal factors has made me think about the books I read in a more analytical way. The appeal factors definitely help in evaluating books for readers advisory. I will have to continue to review the appeal factors so that I become more adept at summarizing the appeal of a book for myself or another reader.
The variety of reader's advisory and genre websites will be useful in helping customers find books. I subscribed to several e-newsletters that have reviews of new books. I will have to keep up with these websites in order to stay on top of books that are not just on the best-seller lists. Book trailers and teen/adult crossover books were pretty new to me before I looked at them for the Bookish Blog. Practice is the hardest part of reader's advisory, but that is how you learn to use the tools we studied this spring. I will definitely be referring back to all we have reviewed, and I will be looking for other articles and websites about reader's advisory to expand my knowledge. I hope that I have learned enough to provide better reader's services to our customers at Towson.
Monday, July 29, 2013
Week 9: Assignment 2, Book Trailers
Assignment 2: A search of YouTube for book trailers brought up a lot of trailers for teen books. The trailer for Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters used actors and looked like a movie trailer. The Clockwork Prince also used actors but did not have them speak. The only other trailer I looked at that had live action was Darth Paper Strikes Back: an Origami Yoda book. The author, Tom Angleberger, shows how to make an origami Darth Paper in the trailer. It's a great tie-in with the book, although it doesn't tell the audience much about the story. So many of the trailers I found on YouTube were for teen books, that I wonder if they are more appealing to younger readers.
Almost all the other trailers I look at used still pictures with text describing the book, and with background music. I thought they functioned much like jacket blurbs or summaries. They portrayed the atmosphere and setting of the book through photographs or drawings. Often the characters were portrayed by photographs of actors. The trailers were like a taste of the book, but without detail or a real hook to capture the interest of anyone who was not already be interested in the author's work.
The other thing about the trailers which I found interesting was that many of them were not featured on the author's webpage. I found most of them through YouTube, and I wonder how they would help marketing the book if they are so hard to find. Carla Neggers has a video on her website that I did enjoy. It's about an e-novella prequel to her Shape and Donovan series, so maybe the video is designed to direct fans to the novella who would not ordinarily find it. Neggers does a voice over description of the novella while pictures of Ireland and Maine, the setting for her books, are displayed. I found Neggers' description of her fondness for Ireland provided a personal touch that was more compelling than the more static trailers.
The trailers I saw were fun to watch, but I'm not sure they really tell you much about the books. Most of them would only appeal to people already interested in the author or, maybe, in that particular genre. None of them really made me want to read the featured book in the way that a good book review does, by telling the reader about the main theme of the book and all those appeal factors we looked at. I do not think I will use book trailers for readers advisory because most of them do not give the viewer enough information about the book to tell if it is something they would be interested in reading.
Almost all the other trailers I look at used still pictures with text describing the book, and with background music. I thought they functioned much like jacket blurbs or summaries. They portrayed the atmosphere and setting of the book through photographs or drawings. Often the characters were portrayed by photographs of actors. The trailers were like a taste of the book, but without detail or a real hook to capture the interest of anyone who was not already be interested in the author's work.
The other thing about the trailers which I found interesting was that many of them were not featured on the author's webpage. I found most of them through YouTube, and I wonder how they would help marketing the book if they are so hard to find. Carla Neggers has a video on her website that I did enjoy. It's about an e-novella prequel to her Shape and Donovan series, so maybe the video is designed to direct fans to the novella who would not ordinarily find it. Neggers does a voice over description of the novella while pictures of Ireland and Maine, the setting for her books, are displayed. I found Neggers' description of her fondness for Ireland provided a personal touch that was more compelling than the more static trailers.
The trailers I saw were fun to watch, but I'm not sure they really tell you much about the books. Most of them would only appeal to people already interested in the author or, maybe, in that particular genre. None of them really made me want to read the featured book in the way that a good book review does, by telling the reader about the main theme of the book and all those appeal factors we looked at. I do not think I will use book trailers for readers advisory because most of them do not give the viewer enough information about the book to tell if it is something they would be interested in reading.
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
Week 8: Assignment 4:
In Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: a year of food life, Barbara Kingsolver tells about the year that she and her family moved to their family's farm in the Virginia mountains. Her goal was to feed her family on food that they would grow themselves or that had been grown by local farmers. Over the course of the year, Kingsolver raises a large garden, her daughters help raise chickens and turkeys and she learns to preserve her own produce. The story of that year is told with humor and insights into the challenges her family faced in living on an organic farm. Kingsolver's memoir is inspiring for those who enjoy her novels and also for those interested in organic farming and the locovore movement.
Hour of Peril: the Secret Plot to Murder Lincoln before the Civil War, by Daniel Stashower follows the investigations into the conspiracy to assasinate Lincoln as he passed through Baltimore on his way to his inaugeration. The story begins with the career of Allan Pinkerton, head of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, as he develops techniques for investigations and forms his Pinkerton Detective Agency. Like a thriller, the book follows two stories, Pinkerton's investigation into the conspiracy rumors in Baltimore and Lincoln's railroad trip from Springfield, Illinois to Washington, D.C., until they intersect in Maryland. Was there a conspiracy in Baltimore to murder Lincoln? Hour of Peril offers an entertaining and informative look at this historical mystery.
Hour of Peril: the Secret Plot to Murder Lincoln before the Civil War, by Daniel Stashower follows the investigations into the conspiracy to assasinate Lincoln as he passed through Baltimore on his way to his inaugeration. The story begins with the career of Allan Pinkerton, head of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, as he develops techniques for investigations and forms his Pinkerton Detective Agency. Like a thriller, the book follows two stories, Pinkerton's investigation into the conspiracy rumors in Baltimore and Lincoln's railroad trip from Springfield, Illinois to Washington, D.C., until they intersect in Maryland. Was there a conspiracy in Baltimore to murder Lincoln? Hour of Peril offers an entertaining and informative look at this historical mystery.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)