Cultural Moment I Completely Missed: The Book Trailer

Evidently there have been trailers for books for a few years now (so sayeth Wikipedia). It's funny that “book trailer” is a trademarked term. (I guess it doesn't take much.) There are only 35,000 views, though, so I'm not sure how well this new marketing method is working out for publishers. Probably that's a great number for literary fiction, even a crossover novel like this one. But it's Penguin. They had to be hoping for more hits in the first month that that. Maybe they're rookies at viral marketing, or maybe 35,000 really does kick ass under the circumstances and I just don't get it.

As counterpoint to the trailer, Louis Menand's New Yorker review.

Hat tip: Elektra Luxx.