The newest trend in literature? Movies.

Publishers are turning increasingly often to new and innovative marketing efforts, including "book trailers." As their name would suggest, these short films broadcasted over the Internet are designed like movie trailers, meant to build excitement and interest for upcoming books.
Some, like David Wellington's vampire horror "Thirteen Bullets" act as a sneak peek for an upcoming novel. Wellington, whose book came out in 2007, created a mini-movie in which a man is transformed into a vampire with makeup and then attacks. Meant to foreshadow the thrill of his novel, he saw the trailer as an effective alternative to a "regular old book tour."

While Wellington's effort was novel (pun intended), now making a book trailer is par for the course for most publishers. In a recent newscast posted on the Wall Street Journal's site, publishers estimated that 1/4 of authors are broadcasting some kind of promotional material via the Internet.

Book trailers, found on sites from HarperCollins to small independent agencies, have a range of styles. Some, like Wellington's, are short film sequences while others feature simplistic author interviews.

Although it's too early to tell what impact these advertising efforts are making on book sales, according the WSJ, that's "not the point." Trailers are designed to build hype and a brand image centered around an author.

The book publishing industry's foray into mass-mediated technology may be good for business, but it gives me pause. With the recent introduction of technologies like Amazon.com's Kindle and the Sony Reader, handheld devices to read digitized books, it seems like books are disappearing from the pages.

Forgive me for being a luddite, but I can't seem to surrender the experience of reading so easily as others. For me a book is an escape, the smell of pages and bindings, the paper softened in my hands as I flip through chapters, folding pages, making notes so that by the end I've imbued a little of myself and my reading experience onto the book. While my defense of the sanctity of books will have to be reserved for another time, I do feel that the advent of book trailers only further degrades real reading.

It has seemed unavoidable since the Harry Potter craze that the literary world would want a piece of the PR pie being devoured by the other elements of the entertainment industry. When the lines of summer customers vying to purchase the latest installment of the wizarding series rivaled those for Pirates of the Caribbean, I knew we had entered a new era. Books, which has so long been seen as the playthings of intellectuals were now fair game as entertainment.

The possibility of successfully spinning out an entire conglomerate brand from a book has further reinforced efforts to aggressively market popular literature. One need only to look at the success of the aforementioned Harry Potter series to see the results of PR campaigns which hinge on getting an audience hooked in and constantly stimulated. Once you have an audience for a book, you have a market for the movie, the soundtrack, the video game, the tshirt line, the theme park ride and the line of organic perfumes. All right, maybe not the perfumes. But it's not exactly a stretch.

If you need further evidence of books have spawned booming business, look at J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings series. Or the hype surrounding Stephenie Meyers' Twilight saga. Or just look at the big blockbusters and award-winners of the movie industry. The Cider House Rules. The Devil Wears Prada. Atonement. Book. Book. Book.

There's nothing wrong with an author making some money. I would also never begrudge anyone the opportunity to be be exposed to some of my favorite books. But somehow I feel like the experience of enjoying a book is degraded by smothering a story in advance chapters, spoilers, product lines and media enhancements. Maybe it's an elitist perspective, but I enjoy reading in part to get away from movies and television, not to be mired back into the visual culture.

I guess it was just a matter of time before the publishing industry decided they wanted to get theirs and in the age of YouTube, I'm hardly surprised that authors are going from literal to viral. But I'm still having a hard time taking the hit.