So what’s a book trailer? Or a viral video for authors? How do you get one made? What should be in such a video? How do you get it to actually go viral? How does this lead to book sales? We’ve got the answers from a variety of sources…
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From Michael Volkin the author of the new hit book: Social Networking for Authors-Untapped Possibilities for Wealth:
Viral videos are a great way to sell books. According to Wikipedia “A viral video is a video clip that gains widespread popularity through the process of Internet sharing, typically through email or Instant messaging, blogs and other media sharing websites. Viral videos are often humorous in nature”.
There are three key points to consider when creating a viral video campaign:
1) Provide great, but ambiguous, content – Everyone loves to hear a great story. But in a viral video, the story has to be short (less than three minutes). Don’t think of creating a video that will sell your book, think of a video that will keep people entertained.
2) Generate a “residual” fan base – Once your video is built you can integrate other social media tools to build a user base and communicate with them. To do this, follow the lessons learned in Social Networking for Authors-Untapped Possibilities for Wealth. It could be as simple as a subscribe link that notifies users of your updates.
3) SEO it– Your video has to be easily discovered through YouTube search and other popular online video sharing sites. Videos should have clear titles, an accurate description and appropriate keyword tags so that they can appears correctly in a YouTube search and targeted specifically.
A good viral video will spread over the internet like wildfire. See the top 20 viral videos circulating around the Internet now at: http://viralvideochart.unrulymedia.com/
Check out this viral video I created for an author during the last presidential election. It got great coverage. The video is ambiguous but gets people curious as to what is coming next. A typical viral video will cost about $2,000 but will be a great return on your investment if it works properly:
http://revver.com/u/jspinx
Michael Volkin the author of the new hit book: Social Networking for Authors-Untapped Possibilities for Wealth. His book can be found at SellaTonofBooks.com
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From Sheila English, Founder of Circle of Seven Productions:
On creating a good book trailer…
Some key elements to a book trailer are:
- Clearly state what the book is about
- Don’t have too much text
- Make sure your text is readable. Pretty text isn’t always easy to read.
- Don’t have your text and visuals compete for the viewer’s attention
- Follow all copyright laws- Use only photos or music you own or have licensed.
- Convey the genre or genres
- Set a mood with your music, audio, text or visuals
- Keep them under 2 minutes (30-90 seconds works best under most circumstances)
- Don’t give away the whole story!
On distributing your book trailer…
Anyone can put a video up on YouTube and MySpace. And if you are using TubeMogul (www.tubemogul.com) you can get your video up on 15 or so sites at one time. But, which of those sites are best for your book or brand? With over 450 online sites that take book video do you really want to have yours only on the sites where everyone else is? If you’re writing YA or chicklit are you posting to TeamSugar or Popbytes? If you’re writing urban fantasy are you sending to TerrorFeed or Crackle Horror? If you’re writing historical are sending your video to Clipblast or Magnolia? You need those micro sites that reach out to people who already have shown a predisposition to like your genre or storyline.
Distribution should go out to online communities to reach people, but it should also go out to booksellers, libraries and book clubs. All COS videos are sent to over 300 booksellers and over 5000 libraries. These are essential venues.
On services and cost…
We offer several different kinds of video. We have a Cover Story video that starts at $300 that includes distribution to popular and micro sites, booksellers and libraries.
Here is a link to where you can see the different types of videos:
http://www.cosproductions.com/OurWork/index.php
Whether you’re going to use COS or some other company you should take some time to know what you’re paying for and make your expectations and goals clear. Get references on the company if you’ve not used them before. Ask them what you will get for your money. A book trailer is a marketing tool. Like any tool you need to know how to use it for the best results.
Resources:
http://www.cosproductions.com/Resources/index.php
Includes: White paper on Residual Marketing Effect of video utilization.
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Publisher’s Weekly also published a blurb yesterday about one particular book trailer (or viral video). This one has broken from the traditional mold — basically, a movie trailer for a book — and is going viral on YouTube as we speak. Not a bad idea … thinking outside the box when it comes to book trailers.
Check out the book trailer for God, the Universe and Where I Fit In: A Psychic’s Reflections on Figuring Out the Rest of Your Life (HCI)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVIE9pXd_Gs
Read the full Publishers Weekly article:
http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6687830.html?q=trailer
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Whew! That’s a lot of information. But are you sold yet? The truth is that creating and distributing the right video can make a huge difference in terms of really getting your book out there.