TV Book Commercials--Opinion?

Since 1979, I've seen ads for only three books.

Three.

Out of how many thousands of commercials I've seen during that time.

It's not worth the price at all. TV Commercials are damned expensive and your book is presumably never would bring it's price back. It's the same as CGI or live action trailers. They're expensive and they never would bring the price back, only in one case; if it's part of a franchise and also if it's something really big.

Assuming you're truly referring to TV commercials and not to book trailers/videos, I don't recommend them unless your publisher has deep pockets and will create and purchase them. If you're funding it yourself, put your money into more cost-effective options. Do all the free stuff first -- advertising, promotion, social networking -- and sink $$ into advertising last.

Cheers,
Sandy

JJM said:

Soooooo, you're opinion iiiiiiiis?

Click to expand...

If I only remember seeing three commercials for books out of the thousands of ads on TV I've seen since 1979, it's not worth the expense. One was for a paperback I bought based on the ad (don't even remember the author's name but it was for a third-rate thriller called The Mime), one was for Stephen King's Misery, and one was for a James Patterson novel that I don't even remember what it was called. Might have been for his current, might have been for one published six years ago.

Just remembered: also one for King's Delores Clayborne. So, yeah. Four book commercials. Not very cost effective, even if it's for one of the Big Names. As mentioned above, if you want to advertise you'd better off leaving bookmarks on freebie tables at conferences or sending out postcards via direct marketing mailer.

DO a book trailer instead. You can post it so many places for free, so its a much better deal. Going on TV to do a commercial is a waste of money. Only the books people KNOW will be best sellers go on there and even then, very few do. Remember, people watch TV so they don't have to read (for the most part).

Speaking as a Brit here, with mainstream TV only: I remember a couple recently, but it's really only big name authors; a kind of "hey, did you know Stephen King has a new book out just in time for Christmas?" deal. I don't remember ever seeing one for an author I didn't know already. Same goes for national newspaper or radio ads. I can't even imagine the amount of money you'd have to throw at an ad company to get a book ad on one of the major channels.