Book Marketing Maven

Promote a Book with Video - How to Get Started

In today's guest post, my favorite technical expert, MaAnna Stephenson, discusses the hardware and software needed to promote a book with video.

According to a recent article in Scientific American, "video files will be part of 90 percent of all consumer Internet traffic (that generated by households, universities, and Internet cafés) in 2013." This statement is part of a report issued by Cisco, which is the leading supplier of networking equipment and network management for the Internet.

Cisco issued that report just one day after Apple announced that their next iPhone will be able to not only record video clips, but will also be able to edit and send them via email or upload them to YouTube using voice commands.

What this means is that it will no longer be enough to provide great text content for online marketing. As a promoter, you'll have to make it visually entertaining as well. Fortunately there are a lot of free or inexpensive applications available that you can use to make your own videos to promote your book. In fact, if you're on a PC, Windows Media is already available to you. There are even more programs available for MAC users.

Book Video Trailers: 11 Steps to Make Your Own

In today's guest post, author and book marketing expert Joanna Penn shares her tips for creating and posting book promotion videos. She makes it sound so easy -- give it a try!

Book video trailers are videos posted online and distributed via video networking sites like YouTube. These can be big budget blockbuster movie clips, or budget MovieMaker slides to music.

You can make it an advert or a social media fun clip that people want to watch. It can be a human interest story made more like a documentary. It can be a cartoon. Essentially, it is anything you want it to be. Anything that catches people’s attention. You can get a professional to make you one or you can make your own for little or no money.

I made this book video trailer with Windows Movie Maker (which is on most PCs). It took me several hours but was essentially free, and you don’t have to be too techy to make one too. Instructions after the movie! (comments and feedback welcome!)

1.  Research other book video trailers that are similar to what you would like to do. Just search for book trailers on YouTube. Decide what you like and don’t like (and what is within your capacity and budget).

Publishing and Marketing Videos for Authors

Videos can be a great way to promote books, but they are also a wonderful learning tool for authors. Several publishing and marketing experts offer free video tutorials to help authors learn more about creating and promoting their books.

Author and book marketing expert Tony Eldridge offers a series of video marketing tips for authors, and he does a great job of demonstrating online marketing topics in easy to understand terms. Subscribe to receive a weekly email with a link to the newest video.

Publisher Dale Beaumont hosts a series of informative and entertaining videos on Get Published TV to help authors write, publish and market their books. Dale covers a range of topics from cover design and printing to book marketing and speaking.

7 Ways to Promote Your Book With Video

Video is one of the hottest online promotional tools these days, and with good reason. People watch hundreds of millions of videos a day on YouTube, and folks who enjoy videos often forward the link to someone else, creating viral marketing opportunities.

Google includes videos in search results, and people also search Google and video sites for videos on a particular topic. So, how can authors take advantage of the power of video to promote themselves and their books? Here are some ideas:

Using Video to Promote Your Book

Search engines love video, and authors can take advantage of this hot trend by using video-sharing sites such as YouTube to draw traffic to their websites. Posting video on your own website and blog also helps visitors connect to you in a more personal way.

Video clips of one to three minutes are perfect for introducing your book and establishing your credibility as an author. Give a brief summary of your book, discuss why you wrote the book, or share tips from the book.

Authors can also use video on blogs, create a video blog where all of the posts are in video format, and place video links in online media rooms and media releases.

For advice on how to get started with video, check out the new website from Joan Stewart, The Publicity Hound, and Mike Stewart, The Internet Video Guy. Click the MP3 link to hear a 70-minute teleseminar on creating and using video, and then check out the easy-to-use video camera, editing software, and tutorials.

If you're already using video, please share your experience by clicking the comment link below. You don't have to be a Typepad member to leave a comment.