Book Vid Lit

by Sheila Clover-English

Sheila Clover English, the CEO of Circle of Seven Productions, has been a pioneer in book video production, marketing and distribution for authors and publishers.

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If you read The Wall Street Journal then you may have seen the article that came out over this past weekend called Watch this Book. It discusses how authors are using book videos to gain the attention of the YouTube crowd.  Since my company, Circle of Seven Productions, is mentioned in the article and I was interviewed for it, I wanted to expand on that article with my own point of view.

First, let’s look at what was not said.

Book trailers and other types of book video are not solely created to sell books. There are other reasons to have a book video that were not addressed in the article.  Of course, if the author of the article addressed all the aspects of book trailer utilization the article would take up an entire page.  She focused on what she felt was the hook of her story and I certainly don’t begrudge her that.

Here are examples of how book trailers can be used:

• Generate momentum for the first week of sales in order to make bestseller lists. This is something that’s been done successfully on several occasions. 
• Establish branding. 
• Appeal to new target audiences by highlighting cross genre aspects of the book.
• Reach out to young people who are making them in school for an English class.
• Gain the attention of those young adults who spend so much time online.  In this respect, book trailers help the publishing industry compete with movies, television, music and video games.

Book video is a tool that the entire industry can use to reach out in a way that is cool to young people. Reach out and show them how fun reading is. Reach out and remind them how wonderful stories are when you apply your own imagination. Reach out and create new readers. Thinking of the book video only as a sales tool is limiting and short-sighted.

Next, let’s talk about the dignity issue.

The article indicates that many authors feel they must compromise their dignity to have a video made. That simply isn’t true.  The type and style of book video you choose to do is governed by the message you want to convey.  If you feel that your brand is a high-brow literary piece then you should do an author interview or reading and target those people you think will be interested in your book. If you write fiction that you feel would be of interest to people who love action, entertainment or a visual medium then have a trailer made.  I might sacrifice some things for my art, but not my dignity. Nor my self respect. I have a trailer, I’m proud of my trailer and I will certainly do it again.  In summary, if you have a book that you feel will be compromised by doing a video then don’t do it.

Finally, there were other excellent book video producers that were not mentioned in the article.  These producers have been around much longer and have created many more videos with publishers than TurnHere.  Circle of Seven Productions has been producing book trailers since 2002. We did not spring up in response to the trend as the article would lead you to believe. We helped to create the trend; and YouTube and MySpace can take credit for the huge jump in book video popularity as well. In 2002 when we Googled the term “book trailer” we got nothing back. Google it today and see what you get.  This is not a new trend or a new idea. VidLit has been doing book video with a very unique style since 2004. ExpandedBooks does top quality author interviews and has also been around for that long. There have been many more producers that have come and gone over the years.

Other organizations such produce book videos.  Reader’s Entertainment TV has author interviews, book trailers, original shows and behind the scenesreporting at conventions.  In addition, there are several online book tv platforms including C-SPAN’s booktv.org and Romance Novel TV, both of which enjoy a huge following.

Book video has found a place in the book publishing industry. And if the industry embraces it, like HarperCollins with over 500 author interviews, book video has the potential to help grow readership. Move over Star Wars movie, for that same price I can read the book and get double the entertainment hours out of it!

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• Go Beyond Just Producing the Book Video

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Book Vid Lit

by Sheila Clover-English

Sheila Clover English, the CEO of Circle of Seven Productions, has been a pioneer in book video production, marketing and distribution for authors and publishers.

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Nielsen ratings systems did away with using view counts to measure website success and instead switched over to time spent as a way to rate. This way of measuring success is far more indicative of real life engagement by a viewer. You can have 100,000 hits, but if the viewer isn’t there long enough to at least absorb the message of the video those hits are meaningless.

Matt Cutler, Vice President of Visible Measures, a company that tracks online behavior, estimates that more than 30 per cent of consumers abandon an online video within the first 10 per cent of its stream. He goes on to give an example saying that for every 100 viewers you will have 30 that will click away within the first 10% of the video. This is called “Initial Attention Abandonment.”

Some of the reasons for Initial Attention Abandonment have to do with trust, transparency, engagement and entertainment.

Trust - This has more to do with branding. Is this a brand viewers know they will have a good experience with? Will they get the kind of content they’re promised by tags and titles?

Transparency - Is the video in a place where the person can tell what they’re going to get? Do they realize they’re getting an ad or are you trying to trick them into thinking it’s something else? Not only can you lose a viewer once they realize they’ve been tricked, but this is a quick way to damage your brand.

Engagement - Does the video give them something to do? Be it physical or mental or even emotional, does the first 10% of your video offer them a way to engage the video? Some videos can be a talking head that just delivers a message, but with every viewer sitting there with their finger on the mouse just waiting to go on to the next thing, there aren’t going to be a lot of videos that can be just an ad message delivery system that will be successful.

Entertainment - Give your most gripping, most powerful, most complete message about your story or product that conveys to viewers that they are being, or about to be, entertained within that first 10% of your video. People have so much to choose from to keep them entertained. Why should they watch YOUR video as a source of entertainment? You need to have something that conveys how entertaining your video is going to be for them right away or you will lose them. You can’t “build” your story or message to a climactic end unless that initial “building” is a sensational opening.

What should I include in the first 10% of my video?

You should have visuals or text that immediately convey all of the above elements. Not an easy task. Let’s take a look at a successful book video that includes all of these elements, Dark Possession by author Christine Feehan. You can watch the video yourself at Dark Possession - Christine Feehan - TV Version.  I chose the MySpace site specifically because MySpace requires a viewer to watch just over half the video before the view is counted. If you watch less than half, the view won’t count. This video has been viewed nearly 20,000 times.

Trust- The title and description let people know what the video is. It is a book video. It is about the novel by Christine Feehan.

Transparency- From the start we let people know it is a book video by stating it is from Bestselling Author Christine Feehan.

Engagement- The engagement here is emotional. You see the couple running for their lives. You’re told two worlds are colliding, the living and the dead. Now your viewer wants to know what’s happening to the couple. What are they running from? Who are they? What are they? You have engaged them by making them want to know more and by putting an attractive couple in a dangerous environment.

Entertainment- The viewer is given a sense of romance, danger and adventure within a short period of time. They get special effects and at the end, “the tease” that leaves them wondering what happened.

People are more likely to share a video like this. There are several elements that are worth having a conversation about. The video, through text and visuals, poses questions while bringing the viewer into the action.

How can you keep people from clicking away? Well, if I knew that I’d be making the big bucks! But, I can speculate just as well as any major media goliath can. Part of what keeps them from clicking away is the video itself. Part of it is where the video is located. Is it where people who like paranormal romance reside? Part of it is timing. Your video may end up having something in common with a current news topic. There may not be a whole lot of new content out at that time. Part of it is the topic of the storyline. There are so many factors that go into what will make people stay and watch the video that you really have to concentrate on the things you CAN control.

Make a great book video. Make sure the first 10% of your video offers enough to keep them watching. Give it a good title, tags and descriptions. Distribute it to the right online destinations. Instruct your client/author/publisher to utilize it. And then, just like CBS, HBO, NBC or any other media giant…hope it goes viral.

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Book Vid Lit

by Sheila Clover-English

Sheila Clover English, the CEO of Circle of Seven Productions, has been a pioneer
in book video production, marketing and distribution for authors and publishers.

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According to the Pew/Internet Project findings, 3 of 4 young adults (73%) on the internet watch or download video.  Half of young internet users say they watch YouTube.  Many post videos to blogs and even more will forward on a link in email. They’re online socializing, researching (school and education), playing games or getting news.Publishers know that teens are online and most have outstanding website offerings that are fun, interesting and interactive.  A great outreach to young people was a Blogfest that Simon & Schuster did and of course other publishers have similar offerings for young people of varied ages.

Lately, schools and libraries have looked to engage younger readers as well by using book trailers. Sara Kajder wrote in the Educational Leadership magazine for ASCD (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) an article entitled “The Book Trailer: Engaging Teens Through Technology.”  This article is amazing and outlines how using book trailers help students who are struggling readers and helps them to be more engaged in the stories they are reading.  The points the author brings up, viewed strictly from an educator’s perspective, was very enlightening.

Libraries are getting into it too!  The Tucson-Pima Library is just one of many that we discovered using book trailers.  You can see how involved they are and the wonderful outreach they extend to young people on their book trailer site.

Book trailers are more than just promotional tools for a book.  They have a greater outreach and greater potential to show young people that books are exciting.  The publishing industry as a whole have this incredible opportunity to build tomorrow’s readership.  Publishers should reach out to high schools and libraries and sponsor book trailer contests.  This can build the confidence level of students who are struggling.  It can create an atmosphere of acceptance where books are not just for book worms anymore.  Cool kids read and make book trailers!  Cool kids read.  Pass it on.

Reaching out to young people through a digital medium in order to encourage reading isn’t a new idea.  But, it is an ever-expanding idea with more and more opportunities to engage young people and create new readers using new media.

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Book Vid Lit

by Sheila Clover-English

Sheila Clover English, the CEO of Circle of Seven Productions, has been a pioneer
in book video production, marketing and distribution for authors and publishers.

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There are two ways to get video promotion for your book.

1. You can create a book video that is meant to be entertaining and place it on user-generated video upload sites such as YouTube or MySpace. From there you hope others will see it and then share it with friends, thus making it viral.
2. You can create a book video ad and pay for placement.

Your video is going to look different, perform differently and be viewed differently according to where you place the video.

Viral videos, those that are made and uploaded for free to social media sites have to have an element of entertainment to them. Social media sites are meant to be “social”, they are not meant to be advertisement platforms. The argument can be, and has been, made that all book video are ads.  Keep in mind that all music videos are ads as well.  Yet, it is easy to forget that and look at music videos as an entertainment or art form.  Book videos should have an element of entertainment to them if you want them to go viral.

How do you make an ad entertaining? First of all you want it to NOT look like a commercial. If you make it 15 or 30 seconds long it is going to look like and acts like a commercial. People on social media sites are becoming more and more savvy. They will look at that and know that you just can’t afford proper placement of your commercial so you’re trying to fool them into thinking it’s entertainment, or that you don’t care that you just tricked them into watching a commercial.

Like a music video, you need to have a story. People want to know what the story is. You can’t make general statements or claims such as, “This is the greatest story ever told” or “An epic love story unfolds within a mystery” and think that’s going to impress people. You can say those things in your video, but you had best follow it up with telling people what the story is actually about. Include exciting and/or appropriate elements such as music, narration or text, enticing visuals, etc. Make it worth the viewer’s time to watch it.

Viral videos = entertainment = appropriate to place on social media sites

Book video ads are meant to be more informative and factual. People know it is an ad. People know that ads try to sell you something. People are used to seeing ads. Your ad still should be exciting or enticing, but it is going to be brief. The briefer, the better. Most ads are 15 or 30 seconds long.

Book video ads are placed in areas where people know they are ads. You can pay for placement on sites like VideoEgg, YouTube (if you can afford it), Viddler or anywhere that allows video ads. They can also play on television or out-of-home advertising. Book video ads should get to the point right away.

A book video ad should concentrate efforts toward a single message. The message can focus on who the author is, which is an advantage if the author is already well known. The message can focus on the storyline if the author is not well known, but the story has a good hook, or current, relative message.

Monitoring the effectiveness of a book video.

Many people are under the impression that the number of views are the greatest measurement of effectiveness for video. That is not true. But, CPM is a well-known, accepted way of charging for ad placement with the number of views being a focal point. The shift for online marketing needs to, and is in many areas, move away from impressions to engagement. It is the engagement of an ad that is most likely to result in an actual sale.

One of the most respected companies that deals in online video, both with ads and viral video, is VideoEgg. YouTube often follows their lead, as do many other video companies. Here you will find a link to a valuable bit of information discussed by VideoEgg CMO, Troy Young. 

Be sure to read the description next to the video.  This is very helpful in understanding where the future of video ads is going.

Impressions to Engagement- Troy Young, CMO VideoEgg

The great thing about VideoEgg’s idea with the rollover/expand option is that the video will still play, but the expanding information would allow graphics and text. Here you could have a picture of the book cover and/or author photo or even photos to represent the storyline of the book. You can also have the back cover copy of something similar, which appeals to traditional readers. The drawback to this is that it is an ad and you have to pay for it. The up-side is that it is pay-per-engagement and not impressions. So, you only pay when someone is motivated enough to click on the ad and activate it.

If you are going to go the route of a rollover/expand ad I strongly suggest not using the author’s name as the primary enticement to engage. If it is a well known author then you’re going to get clicks from fans. You don’t need to advertise to fans. You can get to that target audience through easier, less expensive ways. My recommendation is to have the storyline itself be the enticement.

Whether you decide to try a viral video or a book ad it is important to know the difference. It is important to realize that you can’t mix those medias and expect a successful campaign. You need to know what your goal is when you have a video created.  Let that goal guide you in whether or not you’re going to go with a viral video or an ad.

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Book Vid Lit

by Sheila Clover-English

Sheila Clover English, the CEO of Circle of Seven Productions, has been a pioneer
in book video production, marketing and distribution for authors and publishers.

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There is a lot going on with digital video these days.  For example, new technology that embeds live links throughout a video, YouTube distribution tricks and successful new distribution sites that can give your video increased exposure.Live links embedded in a video is relatively new - at least in the way our company, Circle of Seven Productions, is using them.  The links can be embedded wherever the retailer, author or publisher wants them and provide access to additional information.  You can view a samplethat uses three links within the video.  Just follow the instructions at this site.  The added dimension this provides the viewing experience almost guarantees that embedded links will be the wave of the future.  (This video will be featured on the Borders Media site in a couple of weeks.)COS has started doing industry news once a week on YouTube.  Our intention was to keep the news program available for 48 hours and then take it down to encourage viewers to subscribe to our YouTube book trailers feature  (http://www.youtube.com/booktrailers).  However, we had so many people ask us to leave it in place, we felt compelled to honor their request.  Our first video blog or vlog, focuses on using live links within YouTube videos. You can see a pattern emerging here and there’s a reason for that. People want more engagement. They want more from their online experience. Live links give them more to do and see. Historically, YouTube did not allow live links. Most social media sites don’t either.  But, we discovered a couple of weeks ago that YouTube had changed their policy and was allowing the links. (Whether this is an oversight or an evolution is yet to be seen.)  Regardless, if you upload video to YouTube you can include the “http://” at the beginning of your URL in the description area of the upload and it will become a live link when you save. This is great because you can now direct viewers to your website and to a place where they can buy your book. Perfect for the impulse buyer!I had planned on talking about utilizing RSS feeds to extend your distribution, but I had been using the Revver.com RSS feeds. They are very easy to work with. But, a few days ago I heard that Revver went up for sales and it’s looking grim. It’s a great site, just not assertive enough with ad shares and incomes. So, I’m now shopping around for another site with easy to use RSS feeds. I can recommend a new site though.  It’s FastClips.com. 

FastClips.com is in its infancy, actually still in early beta stage, but if the site can generate enough revenue to stay afloat this year, I expect it will be a huge success.  They have something rather unique. Their videos will be viewable through all portable devices. Their mobile video is like nothing I’ve ever seen.  Being a beta tester for the site, I was able to check out the mobile feature on my Smart Phone^™. The thing that sets them apart from other mobile video offerings, is their ability to offer different sizes and formats to the end user before the video plays.  Many sites can send to mobile for a particular type of phone.  FastClips is set up so that any video-enabled phone can use play their videos.  I also found that the video was pretty clear despite its small size.

Utilization of book video continues to grow as the technology advances.  Mobile phones, RSS feeds, and new distribution opportunities abound.  If such features continue to emerge at this rate, it will become harder for publishers and retailers to justify other types of advertising.  For just $75 we can upload a book video to over 1,000 online sites.  It is easy to see the potential of numbers like that.  Consider this example. If the top 10 upload sites show your video 1,000 times each and the other 990 sites only show it only 50 times each, that’s still 49,500 exposures. And bear in mind these are very low estimates.  Even better, online viewers are individuals who have chosen to watch your video.  This makes them more likely to become a customer. 

By contrast, you could pay $5,000 for a television ad that reaches roughly one million people.  But how many of those people will be watching the moment your ad is played? And of those who do, how many will actually pay attention to your message?  Of the individuals who do pay attention, how many will be able to recall the name of the book by the end of scheduled program they were watching?  And finally, of those how many will think to buy the book the next time they’re out shopping at a bookstore? There’s a strength in online views that television views can’t match.  Online videos can be watched again and again at the viewers option.  They can be bookmarked for easy reference and to share with others.  Motivated viewers can link directly to an online store and purchase the book immediately. 

All this can be summarized by something I discussed in an earlier post:  television views deliver quantity views; online delivers quality views.  Each medium has its time and a place. The secret is knowing which is best for your book when it matters.

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Book Vid Lit

by Sheila Clover-English

Sheila Clover English, the CEO of Circle of Seven Productions, has been a pioneer
in book video production, marketing and distribution for authors and publishers

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Monitoring the effectiveness of a book video campaign is essential for a variety of reasons.   First, it is exciting to watch the view count rise and see which sites the video is doing well on.  Second, the analytical information we monitor is actionable.  The video view count provides a sound basis for monitoring a video campaign and making informed decisions about marketing and promotions.  We can supply clients with up-to-date view counts in an easy to understand graph.   But this is just the beginning. From the video views we can establish a benchmark, which is very important.  This allows us to easily compare the progress of several videos at once and see how a video is performing relative to others of the same genre.  If one of our videos falls under our established benchmark, we can take action to bring that number up to expectations.  We can add more distribution, send out more bulletins about the video or create a blog that highlights the video in order to attract more views.Many have heard the old saying, “Only half of all marketing works. You just don’t know which half.”  Through experience and benchmarking you can come up with a pretty accurate formula for the performance of your marketing or promotional efforts.  By using emerging technologies, watching trends and applying educated intuition you determine reasonable probabilities for which efforts are most likely to be successful.Let me demonstrate this with a case study.Seven months ago we created a video for an author’s novel entitled Xen.  The author was happy with the product and the distribution.  Though that particular marketing campaign had ended, we kept the video available online for an extended period of time so new viewers might continue to discover it.  (This is something COS routinely does with client videos.)A couple of weeks ago I was monitoring our uploads. Included in the information that I get on a daily basis is the list of our most viewed videos on a given site.  I noticed that more than one of our sites listed Xen in the top 5 of “most viewed” videos for that day.  Keep in mind that this is a seven month old video.

I found it unusual for an older video to make out top list, but was even more surprised when this was repeated the following day. At that point I knew there had to be something driving the renewed interest in the video.  I called the author’s agent and told her about my observations.  I told her that I knew they were doing something because the video views spiked beyond our standard benchmarks.  The agent was thrilled to hear the news!

The book is about a future utopian society run by women.  The author had spent a week visiting universities and colleges, talking about the book to students and faculty, and suggesting that it be used in the school’s curriculum.   The college students, who represented the target audience for the book, were intrigued enough to look it up on the internet.  They also found the video.  They actively searched out more information about this book.  The combined effect of the speaking tour and a well targeted book video, inspired the student to take action.

Did it result in sales? In this case it did.  But, even if it is not possible to correlate sales with the event or the spike in video views, it was nevertheless successful and effective in motivating an audience into seeking more information about the book.  The more engaged a potential customer, the more likely a sale.

For example, if a client has specified a date for a special event and the campaign is geared toward this event, we can monitor through daily, weekly or monthly video views how active their campaign is as we near the event.  Should we see a dip in views right before the event, we can make decisions to help get views up, thus ensuring that the event date stays fresh in the minds of the online public.  We might have the client do a blog or a press release, or we may do one for them. We can ask the client to send out a newsletter or make a special announcement on their online groups.  We can refresh the campaign right before the event.

These are just a sample of the ways that authors and publishers can use analytics to get more from their book video marketing campaigns.

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Blook Looks

by Cheryl Hagedorn

Cheryl Hagedorn authors Blooking Central, which examines
published books to discover what makes for a blookable blog.

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Kathleen Dixon Donnelly’s first blook, Gypsy Teacher: Dixon Donnelly @ Sea, is a collection of posts to her blog which was kept during the summer of 2002. Here’s how the author describes her work:

I took 12 Florida college students to London for two weeks as part of a study abroad program, and then was privileged to teach for 65 days on Semester at Sea^™, operated by the Institute for Shipboard Education. 

As a volunteer for the WLRN-FM Radio Reading Service in Miami, available to the visually impaired in South Florida through a special receiver, I offered to do weekly reports chronicling our voyage at this interesting time in European history.

The scripts for the 14 tapes, including interviews with students and others on board, are presented here.

Up until now in looking at blooks, I’ve blown past the internet sites that mention podcasts. But Donnelly’s comment about the Radio Reading Service set me to wondering about the possibility of blooking recorded material.  Other than interviews or conversations, which may or may not be interesting to read on paper at a later date, I’m guessing that many podcasts are scripted.  Which means that there could be a file (some of us still write in longhand on paper … trust me on this!) which could be used to construct a dead tree version of a series of podcasts.  The same rules would apply when transforming blog content:

• Cluster posts/scripts by topic
• Write transitional material between them
• Provide a decent introduction and conclusion

In wandering around, I discovered that there are many sites stories that are delivered as podcasts (see Digital Podcast). Which only makes sense.  But what potential is there for non-fiction?   Who do you listen to whose opinion or perspective you would want captured in print so that you could return to it again and again?  Maybe even constructing rebuttals or making notes in the margin? It also occurs to me that taking the time to listen is somewhat limited whereas you can tuck a book into your pocket and read wherever, whenever.  Okay, so I’m technologically-challenged and maybe downloading and then listening whenever, wherever is also possible! But with reading you can really focus and reread — no rewind/replay

I’ve seen some audio transcripts that, frankly, weren’t worth the effort to transcribe. But it sure gives one pause to think that the same material worked up for a print presentation might actually fly!  Since I’m not a listener I wrote to GoingLikeSixty to see if he listened to anyone on a regular basis that I could cite as an example. He responded, “The only ‘podcast’ I don’t miss is actually a vlog — the best — Wallstrip.  I’ve tried to listen to podcasts but find them poorly produced, poorly written, and always way too long.”

Well, that gives one pause, doesn’t it?  Production isn’t a concern with blogs unless you’re talking about presentation.  But the criticism about being poorly written applies to both blogs and podcasts. And many blog posts are often too short, rather than too long, to make for blookability.

So where are we on this? Are there websites/blogs with podcasts that you know have been blooked or could/should be blooked?

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Book Vid Lit

by Sheila Clover-English

Sheila Clover English, the CEO of Circle of Seven Productions, has been a pioneer
in book video production, marketing and distribution for authors and publishers

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It’s hard to sell something creative when most creative is subjective. Recently we did an online survey of our videos. We chose one video from each of our editors and created a survey.  If you ever want to do a survey of your readers or clients, Survey Monkey is a very valuable service.  We use surveys as one part of our quality improvement and assessment commitment.  It was interesting to see that so many people participated and there was such variety in their opinions.  Something we discovered that was interesting was that many of our participants, which were made up of readers and booksellers, were most influenced by the genre of the video.  Overall, each of the videos did well, but there were opinions that conflicted over music and visual elements.  The video that had the worst marks was also the video that 80% of the participants voted the as the best video. It was almost as though they were harder on the video they thought was the best.It made me wonder how this could happen.  It all came down to the preference of the viewer. Not just the quality of the video, but genre of the video was most important overall.  So, one can conclude that, if someone doesn’t like a video, it may have nothing at all to do with how the video looks or what the message is.In 2003, when Borders Group put the first book trailer, Dark Symphony, up on their site, no one really knew how book trailers would eventually turn into a market of their own.  Now that they seem almost commonplace people see them less as a cool novelty and more as an expected entertainment or advertisement.  With the newness wearing off people are becoming more critical and demanding of quality and clarity.  Slideshows slapped together with text taking up the entire screen is not going to be acceptable anymore.  More and more people are turning to professionally made content.  Not only are authors and publishers turning to professionally made content, but so are distributors of online content.The book trailer market has become established.  With growing online demand for entertainment and news, the book video market has solidified its place in most marketing campaigns.  There is a shift in 2008 from just having a book video to maximizing the effectiveness of book video. Distribution and analytics are the name of the game now.  If you aren’t a major player in those categories, you aren’t looking toward the future of the market.Distribution doesn’t just mean uploading to YouTube, MySpace and the like. That’s now expected.  Back in early 2006, we were impressing people with our 10 distribution sites that went with each product. Now, in 2008, we have well over 200 distribution sites and have branched out into genre-specific placement of video.  You must realize that if everyone is uploading to the top 10 or 20 video share sites, then your video is now in competition with thousands of others. It’s not just competing with other book video, but with other online video entertainment.  Either you need to somehow grow your own YouTube-type sites, or start partnering with specialty sites that will take your video as content. You need to investigate online content provider companies that will send your content out to entertainment sites like SciFi Channel or Oxygen Network.

Analytics are going to be key in 2008 as well. `What are analytics?  Analytics is the measurement and analysis of how something did, in this case, online video.  This includes information such as: who is watching the video, where they were referred from, how long they watched the video, and whether they shared it?  Demographic and geographic information can be important for many reasons:

• Knowing if your book is read more by men or women can help you determine how to develop the look of your website
• Knowing that your video is very popular in a particular state or city can help you determine where to do a book signing or what booksellers you need to become more friendly with
• Knowing what state or city your video is popular in can help determine where you should do media buys

There are more reasons why this information is important and a variety of ways to utilize the information for future campaigns.  Targeting your audience, localizing your target and being able to pinpoint your best opportunities for sales in a given area is going to make your marketing budget dollar work harder for you.  After all, a book video isn’t designed to get hits on YouTube, it is designed to sell books. When you can do both, then you have an effective marketing tool worth investing in.

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Related Posts

• Marketing with Book Videos - An Interview with Sheila Clover English
• Book Advertising: Find a Symbiosis Between Broadcast and Broadband Approaches
• Taking a Balanced Approach to Book Video Marketing
• Book Videos Inside - The Story about the Story about the Story
• Impact = Content x Consumption x Engagment
• Publishing Analytics

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Book Vid Lit

by Sheila Clover-English

Sheila Clover English, the CEO of Circle of Seven Productions, has been a pioneer
in book video production, marketing and distribution for authors and publishers

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Broadcast Advertising:  The Pros & Cons

There’s something good to be said for different marketing endeavors. Companies spend millions of dollars every year for television broadcast advertising. Why? Because broadcast advertising on television takes their ads into the homes of hundreds of thousands or even millions of people. The shear number of potential viewers makes television advertising desirable.

You can do national advertising to get in the great number of viewers, so you can go regionally or even locally to be more target specific. There are choices in how you utilize television advertising. You just need to know what your market can bear, who your target audience is and what your budget can get you.

Television advertising has historically been the king player of advertising and where most advertisers spent the majority of their promotional dollars. It is still an effective way to advertise, but advertising has evolved, so the rules of yester-year don’t necessarily apply now.

TiVo and DVRs are the downfall of television advertising as it once was. Commercials were presented to viewers and unless you left the room, you were subjected to them.  Not anymore. Now you can fast forward through those pesky commercials and many people do just that.

Only advertisers with large budgets could afford to pay for television media spots and have their commercials play on TV. Even now, national commercials are very cost prohibitive unless you have a huge marketing budget.

You have no way of knowing how many of those potential viewers actually viewed your commercial whether you played it nationally, regionally or locally. If sales spiked in a region in which your commercial played one could contribute that increase in sales to the television campaign. But, national commercials are harder to pinpoint ROI. Most companies paying the big bucks for a national television campaign are also putting ads in magazines, newspapers, online ads and radio. So, which of these elements is causing an increase (if any) in sales? How do you know that you’re getting what you paid for?

Broadband Advertising:  The Pros & Cons

Utilizing the internet to advertise a product or service has taken a large chunk of marketing dollars. As more and more people turn to the internet for entertainment and information advertisers follow.

There are two main ways to advertise on the internet. There’s direct advertising in which you create a commercial, banner or static ad and pay for placement of that ad. Then there is indirect advertising where viral videos are king, but you can also use blogs, online groups/clubs, social networks and even user-generated news sites. You need to know ahead of time which, direct or indirect advertising, that you want to use for a campaign.

Once you determine what kind of advertising you’ll do, you need your creative and a plan. Where will you distribute your creative? How will you track its effectiveness?

You can track the effectiveness of either a direct or indirect campaign. If you’re paying for placement of an ad you should be given a stats report from whoever you placed the ad with. For example, when I place an ad with USA Today online, they follow up by telling me how many people clicked on the ad. Since the ad is sent out via email I’m told how many people actually opened the email. So, whether or not someone clicked on the ad, I know how many eyes saw it. For indirect ad placement on social sites or with viral video you can see how many people engaged with your ad. If your ad was a blog, you can see how many people read it or commented on it. If it is a viral video you can see how many people watched it, commented on it or shared it.

Another good thing about indirect online advertising is that it is around longer than other types of advertising. So, if your product or service has any time constraints then indirect advertising may not be for you. But, if you have a book coming out that will be on the shelves for a while then indirect advertising is great! Compared to a print ad that will gone in a month or even a day, your online ad will be around for a year or more on whatever social sites you put it on.

There still seems to be a learning curve in how to best utilize broadband for advertising. Privacy issues are now at the forefront of the news as MySpace offers to place ads on MySpace pages according to what that MySpace users watches, blogs about or highlights on their MySpace page. MySpace is accumulating data about how users are using their MySpace site and offering advertising placement according to that usage. The internet has been historically a place where people can come and search for what they want, say what they want and do what they want without worrying about privacy issues.

When ads are put on social sites the company placing the ad there can’t be assured that their ad won’t be placed next to an undesirable video, something that might go against their brand.

People on social sites lie about their demographic information. So you can’t use demographic information to target specific markets, you must use other methods to ferret out what these users really want. MySpace can monitor behaviors of viewers instead of giving out demographic information. Amazon does the same thing in monitoring behaviors and then sending ads to viewers according to what they last purchased, searched for or clicked on.

Be Aware of the Differences

You can’t really look at broadcast and broadband advertising in the same way.  Broadcast advertising is measured and priced by impressions, the number of people who may potentially see the commercial.  Magazines and newspapers also use this method.  Here you’re going for a greater outreach to a very diverse group of people.  You’re playing the odds. Of one million people who see this commercial, how many will buy the product or service because they saw it on TV?

If you’re looking to build brand awareness, then multiple ads throughout the year to the most people possible is the way to go.  But that’s going to cost, and generally, you get what you pay for most of the time.

Broadband is more about engagement.  How long did the user stay on your site? Did they watch the entire video? Did they comment or send it to a friend? Did they blog about it or put the video on their own site or blog? Broadband is about building and strengthening relationships where broadcast is more of building popularity through shear numbers.

Symbiotic Advertising

Can you have the best of both worlds? Absolutely!  The great thing about the growing popularity of online advertising is that it has caused the cost of broadcast advertising to go down. That and new technology that allows for digital commercials to be made broadcast quality has relieved a lot of boundaries to television advertising. For $1,500 we can get a 30 second commercial played on Lifetime, A & E and SciFi Channel about 200 times throughout the a week. Since we specialize in books we only suggest advertising that first week the book is out if you’re looking to make one of the bestseller lists. But, if you looking to brand yourself you can stretch out your advertising calendar. Again, it goes back to knowing what you want before you get started.

We always put the client’s URL on the end of their commercial. We want people to see that website address. We go for the bigger numbers (popularity) by broadcast advertising, then go for strengthening that relationship by getting those people to the web.

It’s a well known fact that the more someone sees your commercial or the cover of your book the more likely it is that they will retain that information. People are seeing the book on television then seeing it when they log in to MySpace or visit their favorite online site. The great thing about that is that person is sitting there at their computer where they can easily impulse buy. If they see it on TV they may recall it when they walk into the bookstore and see the book in a display or on the shelf. You’re getting the best of both worlds now.

You can go a step further an include a press release online, either paid for like PR Web or TransWorld News or user-generated such as Gather.com or Newsvine.com. The people looking for online news may be different from those watching TV or visiting social sites. Your broadband advertising can reach out to a lot of people who are actually looking for what you’re talking about as opposed to someone at home on the sofa who is subjected to your commercial and may or may not care about your topic.

You are always in a better position of power, or control, when people come to you. That’s the beauty of broadband advertising. They already are interested in what you have to say or show. Of course, if you can afford showing your ad to a million people through broadcast advertising, well, who wouldn’t want that?

There’s a time and a place for everything including advertising choices and opportunities. Know your product, your budget, your target audience and your desired outcome. Then, and only then, should you attempt to make your advertisement

Next time we’ll take a look at a case study that utilized both broadcast and broadband to see how that advertising campaign went.  Read more on this topic and leave your own comments.

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• Navigating the Book Marketing Maze - An Interview with Sue Collier of Self Publishing Resources
• Interview with Derek Armstrong - Publisher, Kunati Books

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Blook Looks

by Cheryl Hagedorn

Cheryl Hagedorn authors Blooking Central, which examines
published books to discover what makes for a blookable blog.

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In late August of this year, Steve Garfield posted at Off on a Tangent about an exciting new project called The Book of Enemy.  I’m waiting to learn if the novel ever made it into print.  Even if it failed as a blook, it attempted to pioneer something phenomenal.  Here is an excerpt from Garfield’s post:

I’m working with a friend of mine, Dave Wildman, on a project that brings blogging, and videoblogging together with his forthcoming novel, The Book of Enemy.

We’re looking for volunteers to participate in a social media art experiment. The Book of Enemy is a groundbreaking blog-novel that is happening in real time throughout the month of September. The project will culminate in a reading/performance piece at Axiom Galleryin Jamaica Plain, Boston, MA on September 28. A number of Boston artists, photographers and filmmakers are providing illustrations for the show, and we’d like to open the project up to the vlogosphere.

The concept is similar to that of The Germaine Truth in that multiple individuals could simultaneously collaborate on a story.  The difference was that The Book of Enemy imposed a time limit of only 30 days.  Judging by the three blogs referenced at The Book of Enemy website, participation was light.  One of the blogs has only a single post!  On another, I struggled to see any connection to the story at all.  This leaves one blog that appears to have been written by a character in the novel, but it’s hard to tell.

The inclusion of video was supposed to differentiate The Book of the Enemyfrom most other online works of fiction.  However, there is only one video clip.  The Book of the Enemywas supposed to include photographs but none are posted; yet the announcement says “A number of Boston artists, photographers and filmmakers are providing illustrations for the show.”  What’s up?  The scarcity of blogs and posts, as well as the dearth of visuals raises two questions.  First, was there an adequate audience from which to recruit participants?  And second, how was the marketing of the project handled?

I assume that Wildman’s novel must have been written and distributed to at least a handful of friends before being posted on the internet.  Attracting participants to a collaborative online novel is too difficult otherwise (unless you already have access to a large and motivated readership to begin with!)  It turns out that Mr. Wildman is the Arts Editor and chief film critic for Boston’s Weekly Dig. He had this to say about his reason for posting his novel on the web:

It’s tough getting attention for literary works. I actually got a rave review from Chuck Palahniuk, but I’ve had trouble getting agents to bite. So I’m making a spectacle out of it.

As a “social media art experiment” I’m not sure that it succeeded.  As an indicator of what the future might hold, I think it’s right on the money.

Another multimedia novel which made a splash — assisted by some healthy advertising – was Edge of Paradise by Roc Hatfield.  It includes a soundtrack as well as photographs and a slide show. I don’t know if the color photographs made it into print. I’m sure the music didn’t!  On the other hand, the music CD is available.

On the non-fiction side of things Carbondale After Blog by David More was based on the Carbondaley Dispatch blog.  More describes his blook this way:

Only the first two pages of each chapter will be printed in the paper edition, including one photograph. Also included inside the paperbound cover, a compact disc containing the complete text of every chapter, plus hundreds of color images, audio and video files and web-based content. Software needed to read Carbondale After Blog (TK3 Reader) will be included on the CD.

Both Carbondale After Blog and Edge of Paradise were solo efforts (as far as I know).  The Book of Enemy and Carbondale After Blog both include video. But it is the social, collaborative aspect of The Book of Enemy that could have made the project outstanding.

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Related Posts

• The State of the Blook - An Interview with Blooking Central’s Cheryl Hagedorn
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• Podiobook Communities
• The Great American Blog Novel

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