Book Trailer of the Week: Russian Tattoo

Do book trailers really work?  

You bet they do.  I had never even heard of Russian Tattoo or its author before seeing this trailer...and now I want to take a closer look at the book to see if it's something I need to include in my 2015 reading.

It doesn't hurt, of course, that Simon & Schuster has a big enough publicity budget to recruit the likes of F. Murray Abraham and Alan Alda for a three-minute video.  (And the author herself, Elena Gorokhova, does a convincing job here playing herself - about to be deported by Mr. Abraham.)

I would love to know more about how much this kind of trailer costs and whether or not many of the books featured in them ever earn enough to justify the initial investment.  Is a trailer charged against an author's advance ?  Who in the publishing hierarchy decides which books get special treatment like this?  There you have it: lots of questions, no answers...the story of my life.