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Book CoverVideo Trailer Review by Sandy M:

The Perfect Mistress by Victoria Alexander

Historical Romance – February 2011

We want to try something new here at The Pond – reviewing video trailers, another way of tantalizing readers to pick up an author’s book. As readers, we spend a lot of time online nowadays, buying our books here more than ever over our local bookstores. So I’m thinking a book video, in a way, takes the place of the first impression a book’s cover gives you. How do you feel about that?

Do you make a point of viewing video trailers at authors’ web sites when you know new releases are imminent? How much importance do you give trailers when deciding to purchase a book, especially if it’s a new author to you? Or are you a reader who hasn’t crossed over from cover and blurb yet and can do without a video? If your interest is piqued after viewing a video, do you buy the book? Or do you need more research before that decision is made?

And do you think our direction of reviewing videos will help you in your decision making for book purchases? Well, let’s find out.

We’re going to handle reviewing and grading a little bit differently from our regular reviews, of course, because, obviously, a video trailer is not a book. For me, content and presentation are key in a trailer. Does the content get the point of the book across to the reader? Does it do that effectively; it doesn’t bore or confuse the viewer but makes them want to know more, to buy that book as soon as possible. Presentation is equally as important, because who wants to watch a shoddily made video, where text is difficult to read or it rushes you through so quickly you can’t register what the story is about or the music is too low or too loud, among scads of other things. These reviews will not be lengthy, just a short paragraph or two on the whole.

We’ll start out giving you video reviews once, maybe twice, a week on Fridays. And, who knows, if y’all like the concept, some bigger and better things could come along! Also, if any of you find an interesting trailer you’d like to send us an alert about or you’re an author who’d like your trailer reviewed, let me know at LighthouseTagger (at) gmail (dot) com.

Our review rating will be 1 through 5 for each category of Content and Presentation, and then we’ll give you a total score on that 1 to 10 scale, which is self-explanatory.

We will not be giving you a summary as we do with our books. Why? Well, isn’t that the point of a video? To give you, the reader, a summary, or at least an idea, of what the book is about? So we all have to go in blind when viewing the trailers, especially if you haven’t read the book yet. So let’s get started.

I have chosen The Perfect Mistress as our experimental first video review because I have yet to read the book. It’s waiting for me, however. So I think this might work on a couple of different levels at this point. And be sure to leave comments about this new idea, the trailer itself, my thoughts about it, as well as your review, if you’d like to share. We do want to hear what you think.

Here’s the video:

Content: 4     Presentation: 4     Total: 8

My review: I like this trailer a lot; it’s very beautifully done. It’s all video, with no text or graphics, which makes the feel of the period first rate, along with the music and the use of dress and the English voice-over. I also like that it’s the reader who is being spoken to directly. It’s to the point, giving you enough for the gist of the story, along with the title, at just over the one-minute mark. With her devil-may-care attitude, I can perhaps see why she’d make the perfect mistress.

The only negative for me is I would like to see the hero. Even if it’s for a brief glimpse nuzzling her neck at the end, with a wicked glint in his eye. Other than that, I’m ready to pick up the book to go on that grand adventure with her.