A well-traveled quote--attributed to everyone from Laurie Anderson to Elvis Costello--claims that "writing about music is like dancing about architecture." In that spirit, is a trailer for a book like a podcast for a painting? ---

In the publishing world, promoting has gone multimedia, with local authors among the many whose much-anticipated new books have gotten a mini-movie treatment. James Dashner's The Scorch Trials, Ally Condie's Matched (pictured) and Bree Despain's The Lost Saint (below) are just a few of the titles for which you can now go to YouTube and watch things happen that you will never see if you buy the book ... because it's, you know, a book.

It's certainly understandable that publishers would turn to unconventional marketing strategies in a world where people are increasingly likely to use their personal electronics rather than paper for any purpose, including reading books. But is a 30- or 60-second snippet of actors playing out a single moment an effective way to fire up potential readers? Or is it a desperate grab at 21st century relevance by an industry that's as frightened for its long-term survival as ... oh, say, journalism, for example?