If You Like the Book, You'll Love the Movie

I didn't think about marketing when I was writing The Muse. I was mostly worried about getting my daily quota of words into electrons and having it all make sense in a story with a beginning, middle, and end. Even after Grace decided to publish it, I wasn't thinking much past a card table at the local Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Comic convention or the corner bookstore.

I quickly found myself in a world where books are advertised like movies, with interactive websites and theatrical trailers, and one of the first questions Grace asked me was, "How do you want to do the video trailer?"

I had no idea. How do you condense a 50000-or-so-word novel into a two-minute video that will intrigue potential readers without giving away too many details?

Fortunately, Grace had done this before with her own books, so she was able to point me in the right direction, and we're working out the script right now. So far, so good, I'm thinking. I can do this.

Then, she asks me what sort of music I think would be appropriate for the video.

Music? I'm a doctor, not a bricklayer...er, I'm a writer, not a composer! How should I know what music would work for this thing?

As it's turned out, I needn't have worried. Grace found a musician on ShoutLife she thought might be able to do the job, in exchange for some advertising in the book. I listened to a couple of his tracks, and I was hooked. There were themes and motifs in his music that perfectly captured the mood of several scenes in my story, and he was clearly the right man for the job. Even better, today he sent me a preliminary clip of his music for the trailer, and again, it fit perfectly.

Our musician's name is Michael L. Rogers, and you can find samples of his music at http://www.shoutlife.com/mlr and http://virb.com/michaellrogers. You can also purchase some of his older music on iTunes, listed under the name 'Eleon'.