The video opens with a black screen. A drum-heavy music score begins as the blackness gives way to the silhouettes of a rock band on stage. These concert images are mixed incongruously with pictures of barbed wire, Adolph Hitler and World War II fighter planes.

Subtitles tell the story of a 1970s rock band that had a chance for glory until "a bullet ended it all."

The vague words, the stirring music and the bizarre visual pairing of rock 'n' roll and World War II drive the viewer to find out how it all fits together.

The video would be a perfect teaser for Hollywood's newest drama. But this is no movie trailer. It's a book trailer for "The Master Planets," a new work by Somers Point author Donald Gallinger. [click here to view The Master Planets Book Trailer on YouTube]

Turns out trailers aren't just for the latest theater blockbuster. Authors are using videos to pitch books to publishers and sell books to the public. The videos are being embedded in author Web sites and popping up on video sharing sites like YouTube and MySpace.

"I hadn't ever heard of it before, but it's turned out to be a very successful marketing tool," Gallinger said. "I suppose in a way it's kind of a halfway point between literature and film."

"The Master Planets," a drama/mystery about a rock singer who learns his mother was a resistance fighter during the Holocaust, was published in September by the Canadian publishing company Kunati Books.

While Gallinger expected that Kunati would go to some lengths to promote the book through posters and interviews, he didn't expect to see "The Master Planets" trailer, a service Kunati has provided for its authors since the company was formed three years ago.

"Trailers are the most effective way to promote a movie, more effective than reviews really," said Derek Armstrong, head of Kunati. "A book trailer just as quickly allows people to mentally visualize what a book may be about."

The California-based company Circle of Seven Productions has been producing book trailers since 2002, and holds a trademark on the name. The company has created trailers for New York Times best-selling authors Christine Feehan and JoAnn Ross, as well as for publishing houses like St. Martin's Press and Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Circle of Seven's success started slowly, with CEO Sheila English struggling to educate authors and publishers about the concept of a book trailer.

"When we started there was no YouTube, no MySpace," English said. "Many publishers at the time said they weren't interested. They didn't feel the reach was there."

Demand for book trailers has steadily risen over the years, aided by the increasing popularity of video sharing Web sites. In 2005, Circle of Seven produced 12 book trailers. In 2007, the company produced 117 trailers, and expects to top 200 in 2008.

Condensing a 300-plus page novel into a 60-second video is a tricky task. Producers must nail down the central conflict of the book to use as a teaser and then find a way to illustrate it. While movie trailers have the benefit of video clips, book trailers have only words to work with.

Some trailers use live action with actors to help convey the conflict, while others just have a mix of music, illustrations and quotes from the book.

"We show faces very rarely," Armstrong said of Kunati's trailers. "Simply because it's taking away the right of the reader to visualize their own story."

The cost to create a trailer varies. At Circle of Seven, prices range from $300 for a simple video to $10,000 for a trailer shot in high-definition with live actors.

If an author is lucky, the publishing house will foot the bill. Kunati's trailers are produced in-house by artist Kam Wai Yu. Gallinger had little input on the trailer for "Master Planets," which debuted on Kunati's Web site in September.

"It was really thrilling," Gallinger said of seeing the video online. "Almost as thrilling as seeing the book jacket cover for the first time.

Book trailers are a promoter's dream as they provide a quick and convenient way to pitch a book to publishing houses.

Leslie Rossman, a principal at Open Book Publicity in California, first encountered book trailers back in 2002 when author Robert Alexander showed her a video he'd had professionally created for his book "The Kitchen Boy," a historical fiction work about the murder of the Russian Romanov family.

"It was a very unobtrusive way to make a pitch," Rossman said. "Instead of taking two minutes (over the phone) to pitch something to publishers or editors, I could e-mail them the (trailer) link and they'd have everything in front of them."

Book trailers join blogs and podcasts as the latest promotional tools used by authors, particularly those who self-publish or use small publishing companies.

"Most people don't realize that to publish a book properly costs a quarter of a million dollars. If you're not a top author, you're not going to receive that much," Gallinger said. "So in many ways you're pretty much left on your own to sink or swim."

Gallinger relies on a Web site and blog, as well as the trailer, to promote "Master Planets."

"It's a whole different world than it was even five years ago," Gallinger said. "Things like book trailers and blogging are absolutely essential to getting people interested in your work."