First, what the heck is a video book scenario? The answer: you’ll know it when you see it and I’m sure you have if you’re on #BookTok. Basically, it’s a short video including music or sound that plays out a book scene or set up or hook or snippet of dialogue and gives you a flavor for the book. In short, Book video scenarios do the same thing as a book blurb, though very differently.
The videos have text with various backgrounds like flipping pages, a bookshelf or an aesthetic of slides depicting people and things from the book or action clips. I could go on and on about what video book scenarios are, but this is a case where a video is worth more than a thousand words.
This example shows snippets from the book and related music as a backdrop to the text that spells out the premise in parts. Sometimes the video book scenarios use dialogue to tease the reader. Here’s an example of that.
This is an example of a video book scenario using a book shelf backdrop and dialogue text to tease. The music adds dramatic effect and helps set the mood. There’s a lot going on in these video clips to help give the reader a feel for the story besides text.
The backdrop can give clues to subject matter and the music can give you the tone and some idea of the subject matter as well.
One more example of the page flip version of a video book scenario where you can see that just the movement of the pages, though giving no clue about the particular book’s subject matter, it does tell you it’s about a book and adds a dynamic element to move the reader forward.
As you can see, this book video scenario is from TikTok and like all these clips, have been developed for that platform. The form has evolved and diversified and also grown to have applicability elsewhere besides #booktok or #romancebooktok.
These are different than the traditional book trailers in that they’re shorter and quicker. However they’re in the same category of using more than words or text to catch a reader’s eye.
When you see a video book scenario tell me how it catches your eye:
What draws you in first? The visual, the music or the words/text?
About USA Today Bestselling Author Stephanie Queen
A romantic at heart and a writer by nature, Stephanie Queen writes angsty-funny college and sports romance. She’s also written romantic thrillers and rom-coms and has published more than fifty books–so far.
Although she’s lost count of all the jobs she had before she settled on being a Novelist, her favorite was selling cookies as a Keebler Elf. She is a graduate of UConn (go Huskies!) and Harvard U and lives in New Hampshire with her family and her cat, Kitty.
