Welcome back to the Book Video workshop, where we’ve been discussing all the different elements that go into the making of a book trailer®, or book video. If you’re just joining us, please be sure to visit the previous discussions: Day 1: Deconstructing A Book Video, Day 2: Writing the Book Video Script, Day 3: Imagery to Tell The Story, Day 4: Creating The Soundtrack and Day 5: Putting It All Together.
To summarize, each of your video elements: script, imagery and music, should all combine to create an emotional impact on the viewer. Remember, at every turn, what the job of a book video is: To Make Them Curious enough to take action toward you and your book (preferably not to be throwing things at their monitors). Usually that action will be to visit your website or to look up more information about your book. But that is ALL the video is supposed to do: entertain and engage the Curious George in your audience. It’s not to summarize your book. It’s not to give away plot. All the elements need to combine to deliver an emotional impact that tells the potential reader what they can expect from your book.
And once you’ve done that, you’ve spent all this time and energy creating a fabulous book video, what the heck do you do with it now?
In order for a video to be effective, it needs to be seen. This means spending the time to distribute your video to the various sites where it has a chance of being seen by the audience you want. Here are some basic options below:
Your Website
One place sometimes forgotten is your own website. Be sure to put the video in a place on your site where it relates to the book – to the book page or offer up a very easily seen link to where to find the video.
Remember, the purpose of a book video is to encourage action toward your book — to visit your website and read more about your book. If they are on your website already, you don’t want to send them elsewhere to see your video. If you can upload the video in native form, it will look better and more professional. But embed code from YouTube is simple and easy to add – either way. Make it viewable on your website. And if your site is built in wordpress, there are dozens of video plugins to help make it easy.
Other Sites: Social Media
There are a host of other social media sites that you can post your video to. This list includes:
- YouTube https://www.youtube.com
- Myspace https://www.myspace.com/
- Facebook (You can add a video to your facebook page)
- Bebo https://www.bebo.com/c/site/index
- Flickr.com (video can only be 90 seconds long) https://www.flickr.com/help/video/
- Vodpod.com https://vodpod.com/
- Vimeo.com https://vimeo.com/
- Metacafe.com https://www.metacafe.com/
- Metatube.com (for searching) https://www.metatube.net/
- Yahoo! Video https://video.yahoo.com/
- Google Video https://video.google.com/
Niche Sites Focused on Books and/or Book Videos
I’m sure there are plenty of other niche sites out there and I invite anyone who has one to share their link in the comments and I’ll be happy to add your site to the list. Here are ones I know of:
- Amazon.com – Authors may not always realize they can sign up to access their book pages on Amazon through their Author Central program. https://authorcentral.amazon.com/ From your Author Central page, you can add your blog links, your videos, and more.
- Goodreads.com. With Goodreads, you can create an author page, a book page and include your video for that book)
- https://www.book-trailers.net/ (blog based)
- https://bookscreening.com/ (blog based)
- Book Video Ning site (https://booktrailers.ning.com/)
- https://www.watchthebook.com/
- Blazing Trailers https://www.blazingtrailers.com/submit.php
- The Red Room https://www.redroom.com/
- RomCon (The Romance Conference) – you can pay to have your trailer shown during the conference. https://fs17.formsite.com/RomConInc/form910665072/secure_index.html
- https://ratemybookvideo.wordpress.com/
- https://bookvideos.wordpress.com/
- https://www.BookCaster.com
Awards
- The New Covey Trailer Awards https://thenewcoveytrailerawards.blogspot.com/
- https://www.daveyawards.com/
Social Bookmarking Sites
Social bookmarking sites include sites like twitter, where snippets of webpages or web content is easily shared with just a click, a link or more. You’ll often find these icon “bookmarking” options on blog posts, just waiting to be clicked. That’s what this does, and if you go to the website for each social bookmarking site, you can get an idea of how it works.
You vote or submit your favorites by sharing the bookmark). For instance, on digg.com, their “how it works” page says:
Submit your favorites. Find an article, image, or video online and submit it to Digg.com. Your submission will immediately appear in “Upcoming Stories,” where other members can find it and, if they like it, Digg it.
This is viral marketing at its basics: you are using the consumer base to vote on your video or your bookmarked content and send it out to others who might like it as well.
In a recent article on ebizmba.com, the top 20 social bookmarking sites were listed:
- https://www.twitter.com/
- https://www.digg.com/
- https://buzz.yahoo.com/
- https://www.tweetmeme.com/
- https://www.stumbleupon.com/
- https://www.reddit.com/
- Technorati.com
- del.icio.us
- https://www.kaboodle.com/
- https://www.mixx.com/
- https://www.propeller.com/
- https://www.newsvine.com/
- https://www.fark.com/
- https://www.slashdot.org/
- https://www.twine.com/
- https://www.clipmarks.com/
- https://www.dzone.com/
- https://www.faves.com/
- https://www.blinklist.com/
- https://www.diigo.com/
Social Media Release
Another thing to consider is a social media release, something I talked about in a previous blog with PR Specialist Deirdre Breakenridge. Here is a website to get you started: https://www.pitchengine.com/
Beyond the Web: Out-of-Home Digital Advertising
At the top end of this scale is a wider, more expensive reach is in the world of digital advertising out of the home, such as digital screens at movie theaters, at casinos, at grocery stores, etc… This is likely not a cheap alternative, but if you look at the OVAB (Out of Home Video Advertising Bureau) Network Planning Guide for 2010, you can see the target audience for some of these avenues and where the benefits would be:
CBS Outernet (https://www.cbsouternet.com/) – target audience is Women 25-54; Skews toward large, affluent families living in A/B counties and the venue is Retail supermarkets.
ECast (https://www.ecastnetwork.com/) – target audience is socially active and influential adults and the venue: 10,100 bars, lounges and restaurants
Going Pro
However, if this seems more effort than you want to exert, again, look to the professionals. When you select a professional, you are paying them for their expertise, their knowledge, their connections, and the fact that they’ve established routes of success. COS Productions provides excellent Distribution services, whether they build your video or not. If stronger distribution is something you want to look into, I definitely recommend checking into their options:
Samples of their packages:
Their lowest rates are $175 for the Bronze distribution, which includes a submission service of submitting your video to:
- 30 Social Media sites, including specialty sites
- 300+ Bookseller sites (submitted, not guaranteed)
- 7000+ Libraries via OverDrive
- 1 Blog
Their highest package, called the Long Tail Distribution, runs $850 for an author-made video and includes submission and guaranteed acceptance to at least one bookseller site (given that your book is sold in one of their bookseller sites), acceptance to at least 20 social sites and includes a press release through TransWorld Media. Reports are included, but please check their website carefully for details. This package includes:
- 50 Social Media and Specialty Sites
- 25 Specialty Sites
- 30 Bookmarking Sites
- 10 Genre Specific Sites
- 10 Online Television Media Sites
- 300+ Bookseller sites (submitted, not guaranteed placement)
- 7000+ Libraries
- 3 Myspace Bulletins
- 3 Blogs
- 1 Month personal overview of video performance
- Search Engine SEO and VSEO Optimization
- Submitted for Portable devices
- Featured placement on our MySpace, YouTube and RECTV sites
Something to consider, as well – as a leader in its industry, COS Production channels such as its YouTube channel, gets a tremendous amount of viewership. So while you may be able to put your video on YouTube and other media sites, you won’t be able to get nearly the exposure that COS Productions can provide. It’s worth considering.
At The End of the Day…
Our workshop is coming to an end and I want to thank you all for sticking with it through each step. At the end of this, I hope you’ve gathered a stronger grasp on what it takes to build a book video, from refining your script, choosing your images, selecting mood appropriate music and the best ways to put it together and distribute it to the world.
As well, I hope that you’ll understand when it makes sense to create and distribute your own video versus when it makes sense to go with a professional.
And if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask. Thanks for playing with us!
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Featured photo by Mysticartdesign | pixabay
…beautiful, ‘Thank You’ for everything Jeannie. I’m doing everything I can to promote your expertise and products. I’ll never be able to repay you for what you’ve done for my book. Again, THANKS, …humbly, garry.