Effective book trailers, plus free volcano

Volcano first. I found this video today, via Historical Fiction Daily. As a PSA it's pretty effective. I'm changing my mind about maybe going to stay at the base of Mt. Rainier for a couple of days...



Another of their videos got me thinking: a rare, (reasonably) effective book trailer. Yes, it starts with the standard 'eerie' music, which I find instantly off-putting, but I like the author's (relatively) conversational description, and the professional narration from the novel (at least I assume that's what it is).

I'd love to hear what you think of this, and what you might do differently (if you're a writer), or, from a reader's perspective, would like to see authors do differently. Specifically:

• What elements of a book trailer give you a favourable impression of a book and/or author?
• What motivates you to actually consider buying the book?

Feel free to include links to effective book trailers. Corollary question: how do you reach the decision to buy a book? These days I tend to download a sample and test drive a few thousand words (longer excerpts are more effective in this way for me) before putting down actual money. This is why I rarely indulge in digital pre-orders: I can't sample the text. So, hint to publishers: make ebook excerpts available during the pre-order period.

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