The New Book-Publishing Challenge: Video

September 18, 2014 - It wasn't long ago that all small publishers or self-published authors had to do was make their eBook version free for a few days, watch many thousands download it, and once it was high on the charts of popular books, put the price back on and watch the money roll in.

"That worked for perhaps six months a few years ago," says small press author E. Van Lowe, who wrote the popular paranormal romance series, the Falling Angels Saga. "Then there were thousands of free books, and no one had time to download them, let alone read them," adds Van Lowe. Right now, there are over 60,000 free books at the Kindle store. At one time, Van Lowe wrote and co-produced The Cosby Show along with many other sitcoms, and now he's happy writing books for young adults.

Author Christopher Meeks felt lucky when his short story collection The Middle-Aged Man and the Sea from White Whisker Books first came out eight years ago. The first review of his book appeared in the Los Angeles Times, and a few months later Entertainment Weekly mentioned it.

A fledgling book trailer company, Expanded Books, which had done well with nonfiction book marketing, created a free video for Mr. Meeks to experiment in what they could do for fiction, and that trailer was seen by tens of thousands. His book did well—but the marketplace has since changed with book trailers, too. Expanded Books is no more. Everyone with video on their smartphone seems to be making simple videos for their books.

Add to that, there are fewer critics in print, and space for book reviews has been squeezed. Then there's the sheer number of new titles. Bowker, which keeps track of published books and trends, reports for 2013 that there were nearly 305,000 new titles published from traditional publishers, and over 1,100,000 from the non-traditional sector, which covers self-publishers and reprint houses. Bowker also said in 2012 that self-published books had increased 287% since 2006. This means more competition.

From Meeks's perspective, he says, "The market is flooded with print books and eBooks. Because it's so easy now for authors to create books without using a traditional publisher-or an editor or proofreader or publicist—there are so many books in competition for a finite set of readers. Add to that that people tweet, use Facebook and other social media, and so all paths in marketing feel clogged."

Thus, he's trying something new—a short narrative film that reflects his new crime novel, A Death in Vegas. In the novel, the president of a company that specializes in beneficial bugs for organic gardeners discovers a young woman dead in his Las Vegas hotel suite. She had worked as a sexy lady bug at his convention booth-and he had nothing to do with her death. He escapes to find the real killer, getting in way over his head.

The short film version has Meeks reading from the novel at a book signing in Las Vegas. Then the model Chatterley shows up. It's a type of metafiction.

"Book trailers have been around a while," said Meeks, "and they're getting better all the time. Look at the ones Gary Shteyngart's Little Failure or B.J. Novak's One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories. I needed to create something just as strong but different." The result is a short film, not a trailer. (Click here.)

He ended up using one of his former students, director Samuel Gonzalez, Jr., who is one of three filmmakers in a final film competition overseen by the Producers Guild of America. Gonzalez looked at a number of book trailers and saw most of them were either author interviews or ones that looked like film trailers with snippets of scenes. "I wanted to do something different," says Gonzalez. "I approached him with 'What if you fell into your own novel?' You would be in the same situation as your protagonist."

"That was bold," said Meeks. "It meant I had to act-not just be a talking head but actually perform as if I was someone else, Christopher Meeks the character. It stretched me as a person. Samuel is a talented director, not only visually but also in working with actors. He turned me into one."

The final piece is short for a narrative film—only seven minutes without the credits—but it's long for a traditional trailer. "But it's not a traditional trailer," says Meeks. In today's book marketplace, one has to stay nimble and try new things.

For journalists interested in this topic, you may call Christopher Meeks for additional quotes at 323-344-7132. He first published short fiction in a number of literary journals, and the stories are available in two collections, The Middle-Aged Man and the Sea and Months and Seasons. Recently, he's focused on crime novels. His first, Blood Drama had a graduate student writing a thesis on David Mamet in a struggle with a ruthless killer and bank robber. Visit Christopher Meeks online at www.chrismeeks.com.