Authors creating online commercials

Wired magazine reports today on an interesting growing trend - authors making commercials for their books, then releasing them online. Hey, and why not? Movie trailers, for example, have become much more popular online in the last couple of years than they have in actual theatres, and that same potential exists for every creative medium out there. The article unfortunately focuses on a number of commercial companies that will produce such multimedia files for authors for an exorberant fee; but really, though, any author with a still camera, video camera, or a working knowledge of Flash could easily do one themselves for no cost at all. Or, just do what I've done over the years - find fans of your work who are already tech experts, and have them do it for you!