# Have there been any book commercials on TV? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 19, 2009, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-there-been-any-book-commercials-on-tv/506929 "2009-08-19T06:17:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2009, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-there-been-any-book-commercials-on-tv/506929/21 "2009-08-19T17:50:23Z")
I remember one from many years ago which featured a woman laying out on a lawn yelling, “Where are the children???!!!” Book of the same title as the yell. Never read it. ---
**Author:** ![Drain\_Bead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47774/32.png) [@Drain\_Bead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drain_Bead)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2009, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-there-been-any-book-commercials-on-tv/506929/22 "2009-08-19T18:46:10Z")
I saw one for The Notebook when it was out. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2009, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-there-been-any-book-commercials-on-tv/506929/23 "2009-08-19T20:30:18Z")
Many years ago, probably the late 1980s, when 1-900 numbers were becoming huge and many celebrities had one (Waylon Jennings comes to mind), Dean Koontz had one for his “Troll Free Number” on which you could hear (I’m guessing a recording of) him discussing his books and occasionally taking live calls. I remembered thinking at the time that Stephen King was probably rolling his eyes whenever that came on. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2009, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-there-been-any-book-commercials-on-tv/506929/24 "2009-08-19T20:33:05Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > Of course, there’s the classic Donavan Freberg Encyclopedia Brittanica ad. IIRC he became an online porn entrepreneur (not a porn star but producer/siteowner). I know he had a falling out with his father (Stan said in an interview they hadn’t spoken for years other than through occasional emails) but I’m not sure if that’s why. ---
**Author:** ![TV\_time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f17d59/32.png) [@TV\_time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TV_time)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2009, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-there-been-any-book-commercials-on-tv/506929/25 "2009-08-19T20:45:35Z")
I remember about 10 or so years ago that there were a number of romance-type books being advertized. Not quite full romances (maybe, I didn’t buy any of them), but with a definite romance-type bent to the ad, something to the affect of, “Mckinze was facing a whole new world, and being without Talon would only make it harder for her as she fought back from a lost life.” All this was said as a live action picture of a woman in a cloak standing on a cliff facing the ocean with waves crashing morphed into a book cover. I seem to remember the ads being on the super stations like WGN and TBS or maybe even Lifetime. ---
**Author:** ![gwendee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/35a633/32.png) [@gwendee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gwendee)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2009, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-there-been-any-book-commercials-on-tv/506929/26 "2009-08-19T22:48:43Z")
The ones I do recall coincided with miniseries, and were often for works by the same author. in the middle of Centennial…“Jame’s Michener’s Chesapeake, now available from Framis and Sons publishing. Wherever fine books are sold.” Judith Krantz, Alex Haley, Jackie Collins, same thing. ---
**Author:** ![JpnDude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/838e76/32.png) [@JpnDude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JpnDude)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2009, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-there-been-any-book-commercials-on-tv/506929/27 "2009-08-20T04:46:53Z")
**Time-Life Books** used to have lots of TV commercials that played often during the '80s-90’s. Some of the most memorable were for the [Mysteries of the Unknown](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNk6CCTWu8M) series. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2009, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-there-been-any-book-commercials-on-tv/506929/28 "2009-08-20T05:02:13Z")
I suspect you generally don’t see many book ads on TV because TV ads aren’t cheap, and only the biggest names have a chance to sell enough books for a TV ad campaign to pay for itself with increased sales. Or, alternately, if you have a book with a very well-defined target audience, which happens to have a high viewership of a particular cable channel, then it might make sense. (Or, as some have noted, running an ad for an author’s book during a miniseries based on another of that author’s books.) Re: Harry Potter. Those books were so popular, and there was such strong word-of-mouth when each book was coming out, that an expensive TV campaign was totally unnecessary. The books sold themselves. Re: the Time-Life books. Those were a different case, for two reasons: 1. Those were what are called “direct-response” ads (“call now!”), which work very differently from traditional advertising 2. Time-Life was essentially selling you not one book, but a subscription to a series. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2009, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-there-been-any-book-commercials-on-tv/506929/29 "2009-08-20T05:48:41Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats](#): > > I remember one from many years ago which featured a woman laying out on a lawn yelling, “Where are the children???!!!” > > Book of the same title as the yell. Never read it. That’s **Where are the Children?** by Mary Higgins Clark. I found it pretty disturbing, but I was 14 or 15 when I read it. They made a movie of it too. ---
**Author:** ![AppallingGael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9bd4f/32.png) [@AppallingGael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AppallingGael)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2009, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-there-been-any-book-commercials-on-tv/506929/30 "2009-08-20T06:20:30Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > But for Time/Life ads, I’d never have learned about the outlaw who shot a man for snorin’ too loud. Could come in handy. See Final Jeopardy in [this](http://www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=590) game. ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2009, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-there-been-any-book-commercials-on-tv/506929/31 "2009-08-20T15:47:20Z")
I’m pretty sure I remember commercials for Danielle Steele and John Grisham books. Here is a Grisham commercial, think it’s from the UK but I’ve seen them in the US: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPQhDMTVlDI](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPQhDMTVlDI) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-there-been-any-book-commercials-on-tv/506929.md?page=1)