Barnes and Noble Video Promo

Good on Barnes & Noble for inserting video into the literary realm. Literature needs more videos suited for the internet — by which I mean relatively short, with snappy edits, a Youtube video rather than a C-Span books segment (think mixing Current with CNN and you’ll get the idea). Some nice B-roll going on here, although the commentary is rather shallow, aimed at a high school demographic where they read all these books.

But the videos could use quite a bit of improvement. The Barnes and Noble Review, which both Edward Champion and Mark Sarvas have written for, is a legitimate forum for reviewing books — as far as I know, they don’t require a specific view of a book. But this video is nothing more than a promotional tool, and not a very subtle or sophisticated one. Flashing classics followed by a newly released book (promotion by association) is far shy of what buy drugs online they could actually do, given the funds available. In fact, since newspapers are failing, big-box retailers would gain acclaim by picking up the slack and establishing forums for genuine reviews (video and print) that aren’t disguised advertisements. Conflict of interest? Possibly. Insurmountable? No.

I think that not only could B&N make their video segments more like their Review, but they could also create multiple channels to focus on specific segments of the book market. A literary channel, once a week. A crime/detective channel. A pop culture channel. With just a few more videos a week, it could be a real outlet and lead the way in videos-on-literature online. Of course, it would be wonderful for a newspaper book review to do so as well (like Sam Tanenhaus forging ahead on the podcast scene at the NYT), but given the state of funds currently channeling to book review sections, it seems unlikely.