Publishing my first novel several years ago meant arranging in-store appearances, printing up postcards and compiling mailing lists, of the snail-mail variety — with the occasional dip into online promotion. With my new novel, The Wednesday Sisters, it’s more about the book trailer.

If you don’t know what a book trailer is, think movie trailer for the printed word: one to three minutes of video meant to find its way around the Internet, enticing people to rush out and buy the book. Like many authors, my initial reaction was Of course! It’ll go viral, and the next thing you know I’ll be seeing my name in The New York Times. The truth, though, is as complicated as the truth tends to be.

I did some poking around to see what a book trailer (or book video) was, exactly, before I put any money on the line. It turns out many are little more than blurbs strung together to a stock-music beat. Some include footage of authors reading or speaking — sometimes with the benefit of camera-ready makeup, flattering lighting and a professional cameraman, but often without those benefits. Higher-end versions might feature original footage, paid actors and swanky video techniques, trying to mimic their more sophisticated movie-trailer cousins, although generally coming up short.

One big difference between movie trailers and book videos is the starting point: Movie-trailer producers start with hours of footage of professional actors, along with soundtracks and film editors who can splice it all together professionally. A book-trailer producer starts with, well, not much or nothing at all. His or her idea of the book is often gained from a short synopsis rather than an actual read; it takes hours to read a book, and time is money. In an industry where a single New York Times Book Review ad equates to pulling out the stops, it’s hard to spend money just for the read. Then there is the issue of distribution: Most movie trailers are developed with expensive big-screen real estate and popcorn-munching movie-goers (a captive audience) in mind. Book trailers must rely on YouTube, publisher and author websites, and a smattering of other destinations at which one can post video.

The great hope for book trailers is, in fact, that original reaction of mine: that a trailer will go viral and cause sales to soar. However, that requires that the trailer keep watchers interested every second — that little close-the-window box at the top of the screen looms large in today’s impatient world — and leave them delighted at the end.

My publisher, Ballantine Books, arranged for a beautifully done video-interview of me, to use in pitching for media coverage, but no one imagines that footage of me talking and reading — even made-up and well-lit, with interesting images tossed into the mix — will spread from inbox to inbox like virtual wildfire. And yet, after taking a look at what else was out there in book videos, I found it hard imagine the additional benefit of a high-cost trailer, or that it was worth a toss of the dice. Of those I saw, there were none I would pass along — although, admittedly, I’m not as pass-alongish as some.

Still, it was hard to just ignore this new rage. And I happen to have an enormously talented stepdaughter, Ashley Clayton, who gets paid a healthy wage to edit video, and who acts, and whom I’ve seen in action creating and directing plays on considerably less than a shoestring. She’d never done a book trailer — or even heard the term — but after a little arm-twisting over the kitchen table one evening, she agreed to give it a try. She read The Wednesday Sisters from cover to cover, and so she had the spirit of the novel firmly in mind when she set out.

Still, to say I was bowled over by what she created is the understatement of the year.

I sent the trailer off to my agent without so much as a whisper about who’d done it, not wanting anyone to dismiss it before viewing it. My agent was so thrilled she asked me to send it to the folks at Ballantine, and before long we were having a conference call to brainstorm how we might use it and what changes might be made to enhance its effectiveness. The result of that conversation was a somewhat shorter trailer — along with an endless refrain of “Your stepdaughter did this? Wow!” after I disclosed, finally, who the trailer’s producer, writer, actor, film editor, camera man and best boy was.

Will it go viral, spiriting us both onto Oprah’s stage? Who knows. It’s definitely a gamble. But it’s made a wonderful shared experience in any event, our two separate works of art making their way together out into the world: my novel and Ashley Clayton’s brilliant presentation of its spirit in internet-friendly video. Which is, actually, the heart of the Wednesday Sisters story we are each telling in our own medium: friends supporting each other as we dip our little piggy toes into the creative world.