June 15, 2009

Matching Book Trailer Venues with Audience Expectations

Posted by orionwell under book marketing, Book videos, Columns, open publishing, readership strategies | Tags: , , , , , , , |
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Sheila Clover-EnglishBook Vid Lit

by Sheila Clover-English

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

A couple of weeks ago I attended a film festival where several book trailers were played on a movie theater screen. Sitting in the dark, popcorn in hand, surrounded by others in the audience, I realized that the way I felt about the videos on the movie screen was different than how I responded watching them online.   Though the content was identical, my experience of the videos was quite different when delivered on different platforms.

The fact is that different platforms come with different expectations from the audience. Mobile phone platforms feel suited best to short form video of 10, 15 or 30 seconds. Yes, people will accept longer videos, but only if the videos are chosen by the viewer through a venue such as YouTube or some similar site on which the viewer knows longer forms reside.

movie on iPhoneMy daughter downloaded the movie Boltto her iPod and she has watched it several times.  But she chose that long form to put on her portable device.  iPods and the iPod Touch are platforms where people can play entire movies, so a longer video is acceptable.

We are experimenting with video on portable devices.  Circle of Seven Productions (COS) offers video on mobile devices such as smart phones and iPhones and any other mobile phone device that allows for video. In addition we have video on the iPod, iPod Touch, PSP and even the Wii.  Again the feel of watching a video on each of those platforms can vary.

Watching the videos play on the large movie theater screen as though they were real movie trailers was thrilling. Even more thrilling was observing the audience around me as they watched them. The videos that appealed most to this audience were those that were acted out. True “book trailers.”  Priest of Blood, Lady of Serpents and One With the Shadowscaused quite a stir among the viewers. This particular crowd was there to watch independent films at a festival. The trailers were part of the festival, so there was a lot of audience chatter after each video played. The quality was incredible and so were the CGI effects. But that was expected on the big screen.

turbulent sea book trailerOnline video play has evolved and viewers have their own expectations, but again venues matter. YouTube videos can play up to 2 minutes without a general audience complaining about the length; as long as it is entertaining. MySpace is a little more tolerant of long form video as well, but Facebook is faster paced and the preference seems to go to shorter video.  Also, venues that are specific to readers want shorter videos unless the book is written by a celebrity author. The bigger the author’s name, the longer their video can be. Christine Feehan’s video for Turbulent Sea, which runs 2 minutes and has tens of thousands of views across the internet is an example of this. According to the analytics provided by YouTube the viewers watched the video all the way to the end.

If the video goes up as an ad it should be created as 10, 15 or 30 second spots according to the platform. For social media that is not specifically a reader site, 90 seconds is ideal. People on social sites want to feel that you are entertaining them, not advertising to them, so you have to be creative and you have to give them a little more for their time and attention.

We have taken a single video and cut it into several lengths for different platforms. One book trailer was cut into a 15 second then a 30 second video for online and television advertising, then a one minute spot for reader sites and a 2 minute spot for social sites. It seems like a lot of extra steps, but being more thoughtful of the delivery of your video and how the receiver/viewer reacts or interacts with the video can mean the difference between a sale or no-sale, entertained or annoyed.

Technology is ever-evolving and the end user continues to evolve in their expectations as well. Video is still hot, but it needs to be delivered to the venue and in the form most appropriate for the intended audience.

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May 25, 2009

Book Trailers for Mall Rats

Posted by orionwell under Book videos, open publishing, publishing networks, readership strategies | Tags: , , , |
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Digital billboards may soon become the latest way to market books.  They are essentially like large TV screens that can be programmed to rotate video ads according to schedule.   Advertisers are generally billed based on the impressions they are likely to garner in a particular location.  They have been around for a number of years and have been shown to have more impact than their static, print based cousins.  So it is only natural that publishers are starting to experiment with this new advertising venue. 

According to the Southern Review of Books, from March 3 to 31, a trailer promoting the novel by Thomas Fitzsimmons entitled City of Fire (Forge Books) was shown on digital billboards operated by Adspace Networks in 105 malls in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Houston and 35 other cities. Each mall has between four and 29 screens, for a total of 1,389, and the trailer runs a dozen times per hour on every screen.

digital billboards in mallMall advertising lets publishers bring their message in the form of a live action 15-second video right where people are and ready to spend. City of Fire is the story of Michael Beckett, a veteran cop in the Bronx, N.Y., who seeks to apprehend the person responsible for a string of arson fires. Fitzsimmons’ thriller is a mass market original. Forge is working with bookstores located in the participating malls to promote City of Fire, which went on sale March 3 with front-of-store visibility and floor display placements.

City of Fie book trailer

However, publishers may not want to be selective about putting book trailers on digital billboards.  Outdoor billboards have been shown to be highly effective at capturing the attention of drivers.  So effective in fact that a number of communities – e.g. Los Angeles – are now weighing ordinances to ban digital billboards because they represent a threat to highway safety.  Indoors, however, they could represent a whole new way to spur readers to purchase popular titles.

digital billboard outdoorThe jury is still out on how this will affect the overall sales of Fitzsimmons’ book;  so far, he says on a post on an Amazon community, his retail sales are good.  But in the future, digital billboards, like transit based video, could provide extra joice for book sales.  As digital billboards and signs replace their non-digital counterparts, it opens up an unlimited marketing venue for book trailers which comes with a ready made set of well understood consumer demographics.

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September 22, 2008

Smart Tradeoffs in the Battle Against Book Trailer Trash

Posted by orionwell under author tools, book marketing, Book videos, Columns, readership strategies | Tags: , , , , |
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Sheila Clover-EnglishBook 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.

A key consideration when producing a book video is the tradeoff that frequently arises between production values and budget.  Book trailers run the gamut in terms of quality.  Some high-budget book videos use HD or film and have movie or TV stars in them.  At the other end of the spectrum are amateur videos, that may have serious creative and technical problems.  Both types get posted to the same distribution sites, such as YouTube.  People watching the amateur videos may decide that the low quality book video reflects the quality of the book it is intended to promote.  If video isn’t your avocation, it is worth consulting a video production firm to find ways to manage the budget / quality trade-offs and still produce an effective trailer.  Here are some questions we frequently get asked about book videos.

How do you work around a limited budget?

Most of the trade-offs in production values originate with the budget.  Since the primary client is an author with limited funds, we must respect what this imposes on the trailer we make.  One trade-off is the number of scenes.  Often we are asked to do several scenes for a minimum budget which means that our props or actors may have to reflect that budget.  It might be better to have fewer scenes and invest more in the quality of each scene.  Another trade-off occurs around the use of professional talent.  For instance, an author may want a friend to be in the trailer or to do voiceover narration.  Unless that friend is a professional, it usually just creates more work for the production company without resulting in a higher quality video.

Another tradeoff is using digital vs. film or HD.  Originally, we used digital to keep costs down.  Our intent was to create a look specific to trailers and not attempt to compete with movie trailers.  However, publishers or wealthy authors may be willing to pay the tens of thousands of dollars for a book video shot with the higher quality media.  

Sometimes a client will insist on having something in a trailer that is NOT appropirate for what the video is trying to accomplish.  All to often this is more about ego than effectiveness.  For example, COS Productions created one trailer where the author insisted upon choosing the actors.  In particular, she had the male actor in mind when she wrote the book.  In fact, she wrote the book with this person in mind and described him knowing he would, one day, be in the trailer.  But, the majority of people commenting on that trailer said he looked nothing like the hero in the book. The trailer took a huge hit.  But the author loved it, the booksellers used it and a fair number of bloggers said it influenced them to purchase the book. Obviously, anything creative that you make will be viewed through the filter of what that viewer feels at the time they watch it. It’s all subjective.  Sometimes you win with fans and sometimes you lose.

Do bad videos affect customer loyalty?

Loyal readers will see a video and if they like it they will credit the author. If they don’t like it, they usually blame the producer. Even if the client made creative decisions that the readers didn’t like, the producer will be held responsible because fans like being fans and they will always support the author, even to the detriment of the producer, even when it isn’t the producer’s fault.  In this respect, having someone else produce your trailer provides a buffer for the author. 

Do bad videos negatively affect sales?

Though the general consensus from booksellers has been that they see an increase in sales when a video goes up, there’s really no hard evidence on this issue yet.  With thousands of books coming out every month there is one thing that is for sure; if people don’t know your book exists they won’t buy it, the quality of the book video notwithstanding.  If on an average 10,000 people hear about your video through normal channels then the most you can hope to sell is 10,000 books. With video, tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people will learn about your book; so your potential sales above the normal channels stands to go up. Even if they don’t like the video, they may like the story. Or they may still check out your site. If only 1,000 people buy the book because of the video, and 5,000 won’t because of the video, you are still gaining 1,000 readers above what you would have gotten through normal channels of marketing. Readers who depend on normal channels of marketing (word of mouth, back cover copy, RT ads, book reviews) are less likely to be influenced by a book video one way or another.

People who work in a creative field, such as writing or making entertainment videos, will always be subjected to the opinions of the general public. Bad book reviews, like bad book video reviews, come from a lot of places. Just because someone gives a book a bad review doesn’t mean the book isn’t good. It just means that that person didn’t like it. For whatever reason.

How much should you pay attention to bad book video reviews?

As with any creative endeavor, a few bad reviews are expected.  But, if the majority of the reviews from a variety of sources say the video has problems then let’s face it; it has problems. But, that doesn’t mean your career is over. It means that you need to take that input seriously and DO something with it!  At COS Productions, we set up a beta tester program back in 2006. We have reviewers watch our videos and they answer questions about it such as: “What was your least favorite scene and why?” and “Was the music appropriate throughout the video?”

We won’t beta test all videos because we produce too many and it isn’t always necessary.  However, we do test our full production videos and we sample test our videos using a maintenance schedule. So all types of videos are occasionally tested as are all of our producers. So, even if we have one that ends up not being well received we know we can do better next time because we take comments, constructive or otherwise, into account.

Not every book video is going to be a Telly award winner. But when the majority of them are, you can withstand the occassional bad comment and still feel successful.

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August 14, 2008

400 Ways to Move your Trailer – Book Video Distribution Takes Off

Posted by orionwell under author tools, Book videos, Columns, open publishing, readership strategies | Tags: , , , , , , |
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Sheila Clover-EnglishBook 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.

As book videos become more important in the book marketing mix and book video distribution options expand, it is critical to distribue tyour video on sites that closely match your audience demographics.  Distributing effectively is part judgment, part technology and part experimentation.  The technology aspects of book video include: formatting, search engine optimization (SEO) and distribution.  These represent major concerns and hot topics for the COS Productions‘ R&D team which is made up of internal employees as well as contracted specialists.

Last year our primary focus was on book video distribution.  We worked on establishing relationships with booksellers and specialty sites.  We submit our videos to over 300 booksellers and 5,000 libraries as well as specialty sites such as: Watch the Book, Preview the Book, DigiGirls Library, TerrorFeed, Dark Scribe Magazine, Romance Novel TV, and so on. More recently we’ve been working with BooksiRead and GoodReads and delving into more niche communities while continuing to reach out to additional booksellers and book clubs.  We’ve mastered the RSS feed and are now able to do more with less time invested. We can even use RSS to get our blogs out to several areas and then monitor comments using Friend Feed.

Our big focus in R&D right now is video SEO. Now that technology has caught up with SEO opportunities for video we plan on taking full advantage of that. Our team is currently working on a tutorial video and guide for our network partners that will help our videos have greater SEO.

Today there are many distribution options.  We have a list of over 400 sites that we can distribute to online.  We believe this gives us the broadest possible coverage for our book videos in the various social media. Here is a small sample of sites that provide some basic distribution opportunities.

5min (when applicable) Meebo Viddler
Addicting Clips MeeVee VidPow
AOL Mefeedia Vimeo
AtomUploads Mixx VSocial
Backflip Myjeeves Yahoo Video
Blinklist MySPace YouTube
Blinx Pando Borders
Blip TV Photobucket BN.com
Bluedot Propeller Powells.com
Break PureVideo Southern Independent Bookseller’s Association- all bookstores
ClipBlast Putfile Watch the Book
Crackle REAL Preview the Book
DailyMotion REC TV DigiGirls
Del.icio.us REC TV Blog Dark Scribe Magazine
Digg Reddit TerrorFeed (Horror only)
Flickr SearchforVideo Romance Novel TV (Romance only)
Flurl Sevenload GoodReads
Folkd Spash Cast BooksiRead
Furl Spurl Ebookisle
GoFish StumbleUpon Night Owl Romance
Google Video Sumo Romance Designs Theater
Internet Archieve Technoratti COS Productions website and newsletter
 iTunes TotalVid Find Me an Author
Lycos Twitter Kim’s Wonderful World of Books
Magnolia Veoh OverDrive (sends to 5000 libraries)

Some of these sites are very specific to genre and allow you to target your book video to the most receptive audience.  So, for example, if you have an inspirational book, we won’t send your book video to TerrorFeed.  In this respect, it is exciting to see book video on the same playing field as video game trailers and movie trailers.  2009 promises to be an exciting year for book video!

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June 11, 2008

The Wall Street Journal Watches Book Marketing – My Take

Posted by orionwell under book marketing, Book videos, Columns | Tags: , , , , , , , , |
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book vid lit iconSheila Clover-EnglishBook 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.

Wall Street Journal mastheadIf 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.

videographerThe 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.

romance-novel-tv logoOther 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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May 5, 2008

Initial Attention Abandonment – The 10% Rule of Internet Video

Posted by orionwell under Columns, open publishing, publishing analytics, readership strategies | Tags: , , , , |
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book vid lit iconSheila Clover-EnglishBook 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.

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.

time on internetMatt 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?

christine-feehanYou 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.

clicking mouseHow 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.

entertainmentMake 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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January 7, 2008

Go Beyond Just Producing the Book Video

Posted by orionwell under book marketing, Book videos, Columns, open publishing | Tags: , , , , , |
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book vid lit iconSheila Clover-EnglishBook 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

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.geographic infoDistribution 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

demographic chartingThere 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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November 12, 2007

Book Videos Inside – The Story about the Story about the Story

Posted by orionwell under author tools, Book videos, Columns, readership strategies | Tags: , , , |
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book vid lit iconSheila Clover-EnglishBook 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

Book videos are becoming a popular and accepted form of book marketing.  During the past several years, I have produced and distributed many book videos and found them to be potent devices for attracting readers and selling books.  But authors and publishers who venture into this new realm need to understand a few things about web marketing in order to use this new tool effectively.

Book Videos are Objects of Desire

First, book videos work because, unlike the advertisements we are used to from the print or broadcast media, they are objects designed to be found and consumed as the result of intentional searches.  By this, I mean that individuals find book videos because they are searching for information or resources related to a particular topic or interest.     The very fact that an individual found a book video as a result of their own searching means the odds are greater they will watch it – and if they find it compelling, that they will buy the book. 

For example, if an individual likes cave pearls and this is their hobby, they might search on the term “cave pearls.”  They may look on YouTube they may look for blogs about it.  When they do they will find the book Pearl Jinx by Sandra Hill. It is a story about people hunting for cave pearls.  “Did you say cave pearls?!  Wow!  I love cave pearls!  This might be something totally new for me!”  Now, they have found a book about their favorite topic and are more likely to take that next step and buy it.

This is what makes book videos such a useful online marketing and branding tool for books.  They turn up in searches for book trailers.   But, because they are tagged, book videos  can also be returned in general search results related to the topic of the book.  Book video can nurture potential readers or bring established readers to topics they want to read about.

Use Tags to Help Readers Find Your Book Video

Tags are descriptors attached to the videos you upload to online video sharing sites.  They are important because they help people find your video.    Tags are a form of “meta data” – information about your book video that search engines incorporate when they index your content.  When an individual types a keyword or phrase into a search box, this meta data is what the search engines uses to return search results.  For this reason, tags are very important.

There are three types of information you should provide when you upload your video online.

  • Title. Make the title clear.  Be sure to include your name as well.  People will be able to find you according to what’s in your title.
  • Description.  Don’t let your description become a commercial.  Make it exciting. My experience with producing and marketing book videos shows that this is how you get people who are interested in your topic to pick up your book.  Use the description to write what is exciting and unique about your book!   Some video sharing sites limit the number of words so choose yours carefully. If you use your name in the title, don’t waste your limited description copy to repeat it.  Keep your description topic focused, not just genre specific.  Give the reader a feel for the story. 
  • Tags.  Tags are another device to help people find you. Tags allow individuals to search for your book video using specific words.  Again, there is no need to include your name as a tag, if it is already in the title.  If people want to find youspecifically they will go to your website.  Often, the number of tags you can use is limited.  Use terms that capture the essence of your book without being so popular that your listing will appear near the bottom of results from searches using those terms.  For example, you would probably want to avoid using terms like “love” or “sexy.”  Try out your tags in searches on the sites where you are planning to upload your video.  The number of items returned by the search query will let you know how much competition there is for thosee terms.

Using the descriptors above help people find you whether the topic of your book is vampires or football.  Note that I always include the word “book” or “novel” in the tags just to be sure people understand what they are looking at is a book.

Tell a Good Story to Energize your Web Marketing

People looking for what you have to sell are more likely to buy it.

How do you use a video to get people interested in reading your book?  In my experience, the answer is straightforward. Make good videos.  Make the videos appealing, exciting and entertaining.  Perhaps the best advice to give here is:  don’t use a video to sell your book.  Use it to sell your story and make potential readers want more.  For example, give them one sentence that asks a question they will want answered:

“If you could go back in time and change 20 seconds of your life, what would it be?”

That’s a great question to make someone read on or go to your website. That puts them in the story. What would they do is what they will be asking themselves.  It lets the viewer invest themselves in a story they don’t know about.

Or you can make a statement that ties into other entertainment that might resonate with the viewer.  For instance:

“James Bond meets the Geek Squad in this romantic comedy about spies, planes and TV sci-fi programs.”

That let’s your viewers know about the story and still makes them wonder what in the world that could be about?

Think bigger when you market your book.  Get your readers to buy into your story. Get them to want to invest their time in it by investing themselves (asking questions, hitting a topic they already like).

Most books are targeted at a specific readership.  The internet offers the best way to aggregate niche audiences.  Make it easy for them to find you, then make them want your story.

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