This is part of the Bittersweet Book Launch case study, where Dan Blank and Miranda Beverly-Whittemore share the yearlong process of launching her novel. You can view all posts here.
by Miranda Beverly-Whittemore
As Kai and I edit my book trailers, I’ve been looking at a lot of other book trailers for a sense of how they got across the essence of their novels. There’s a wide range of styles (and, I imagine, successes) out there, probably. I think most authors have a hard time knowing how to best pitch their own books to a viewing audience, or what would go “viral.”
But this trailer, for David Gilbert’s & Sons is tongue-in-cheek, intriguing, and sports a cameo from Brooke Shields.
It made me ask: what is this book about? I wanted to read it to find out.
Over the weekend, I read & Sons, about a reclusive, curmudgeonly, Salinger-esque writer named A.N. Dyer and his relationship with his sons and the other men around him. The book plays with the idea of the myth of the father, and the trailer plays on this idea– the mythology of a Great Man.
David’s also got a page on his website sporting the “body of work” of A.N. Dyer, which I imagine must have been very fun to create.