Podcast: Download (Duration: 29:43 — 6.8MB)
Book trailers and online video marketing are really effective these days as there is a huge audience on YouTube and other sites consuming video. But how do you use video effectively? In today’s podcast, we explore book trailers in more detail.
Darcy Pattison is an award winning children’s book author and writing teacher. She teaches the Novel Revision Retreat across the US and has just released ‘The Book Trailer Manual‘ which teaches authors how to create and market their books with book trailers.
In this podcast, you will learn:
- Why book trailers are so talked about right now. Online video is a huge growth market with millions of views daily. 80% of internet users are watching videos so you have a huge audience you can reach through video.
- I refer to the interview with Gideon Shalwick on using video for marketing and his Rapid Video Blogging course
- Technology is much easier now so you can instantly make and upload a video.
- Why do people stop watching book trailers? They have boring concepts, bad music and static images.
- The YouTube aesthetic is ‘informal’ so you don’t need movie quality
- Things that make a good trailer: Concrete details about your book, Make it Sticky and memorable, Unusual and a bit different, and humor is very important. (If you’re not very funny, you can be useful!)
- Book of Spam toastvertising as an example
- Your video is a multi-media elevator pitch, it’s not a description. You need to pull the reader in.
- Example of book trailers: Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Dark Hunter
- Another example we talked about: Book Launch 2.0
- You can use book trailers as part of a video series, including a talking head style video as well as a book trailer sales tools. You can keep people’s attention over a long period of time if you post more videos.
- Having your own channel on YouTube is very important as it is considered more authentic, and can also help you promote as you can link to your blog and build a readership there. Remember to use the description box to include live links to your site – you must use http:// so that people can click through
- Technical ways to create a video. There are free services like Moviemaker or ScreenFlow and also Animoto.com for animations. Darcy talks about SonyVegas HD software and her camera Kodak Zi8, similar to the Flipcam. You can get images from iStockphoto.com and also creative commons from Flickr.com. You can get video from lots of different sites including archive.org. For music, make sure it is upbeat and appropriate for your book and also the audience. Remember to be aware of copyright. You need to use royalty free music and images.
- Ideas for distributing your video. YouTube is just one of the many sites you can load video to, although arguably it is the most important. You need to research where you can load your videos as many sites are audience specific. Remember to take your video everywhere so you can play it e.g. before a talk or at a school. Video is definitely relevant for all age groups now. Almost everyone online is watching videos.
- Do book trailers work? It’s a case of using them to augment your marketing across many platforms. People will find your books in many different ways. They also love to make a personal connection. (This is the video I mentioned about the Shroud of Turin)
You can get The Book Trailer Manual here.
You can find Darcy’s other information at her site here.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Joanna
Thoughtful post. I wonder what you’d consider a fair price for a professionally made book trailer? And whether there has to be (or at least should be) a direct return on investment measured in terms of views-become-sales. And who pays – author or publisher?
It’s a fascinating area. We’re doing some market research here – http://bit.ly/bXiqbk – if you have a moment
best
Kyle
Thanks Kyle – I don’t think there has to be a direct return on investment for any marketing. It is all brand building and attention seeking in some way, which over time builds sales. I’m not sure what a fair price is, but I am currently looking into outsourcing for some of my videos – not specifically trailers. http://www.elance.com has a lot of options, as do Odesk and Guru.
I agree about no need for a direct, or at least immediate, roi with marketing of this sort. But I fear that many publishers disagree! While they’re delighted to see authors doing their own promo work, they’re less keen to invest in it. For an author, paying (say) $500 or $1000 for a book trailer is a hefty investment – and risky or even pointless if there’s no direct roi in terms of additional sales. My hunch is that (well-made, punchy, catchy, brilliant) book trailers can and will sell more books directly IF used properly as part of a marketing strategy
Oh, this is beautiful! I need this kind of information so so so much! I am technically challenged! I really appreciate it when people share info like this, it’s terrific!
Thanks again,
Patricia
I found a wonderful website that offers video production of book trails for a reasonable price. Very professional service and a high quality product! http://www.ivideoproductions.com Here is a sample of one that was done for the science fiction thriller Exoskeleton. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uu6zqx5ufY
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