Here’s a quick interview with Vikram Narayan, President of Freado.com, which produces two great new promotion tools for self-publishing Authors. Think Social Marketing for Authors at high speed.
This 15-minute interview introduces Freado.com and BookBuzzr.com, which allow any Author to promote a book excerpt, promote how to buy their book, and almost any other marketing info you can think of. These tools make it easy for any blogger or website to pick up and display your book, plus, there is direct integration for social media tools like FaceBook and Twitter.
All Authors know how hard it is to drag traffic to your website, but these tools about outreach – it’s about pushing your stuff to where the people already are. As Vikram rightly says, “… marketing your book online consists of a number of small activities that need to be done regularly… making your book extract available on your blog or on your facebook profile is very basic… and this takes your book extract to where the traffic is.”
(Note: I say in the recording that it’s early June, 2009, but it was actually recorded this morning, July 10th, 2009. What can I say – I recently gave up caffeine.)
I’m being interviewed on July 2nd by Sheri Kaye Hoff, regarding eBooks and the video trailers to sell them. I’ve compiled a list of good and bad examples of video book trailers to make a few of my points clear.
Love, Stargirl
This one was the winner of the 2007 Teen Book Video Awards. (Like, if there’s an award, we should all make sure this is top on our priority list for book marketing, right?) Even though this example comes from a highly-niched fiction market, the comments still apply for business and non-fiction books.
Things I like about this one:
- extremely involving sequence, tone, etc. to draw in the watcher
- cool imagery appeals to the designated audience; in this case, teen girls
- a little weird and makes good use of “creepy” element
- it’s well-edited and looks very Hollywood-quality (essential here to foster the fantasy, but not essential in every case)
- kudos to them for finding an appropriate contest to enter and gain additional publicity
Things I think could be done better:
- more visibility of a URL or book title throughout production
- a clickable purchase link at the end (YouTube allows you to do a lot of custom stuff with a bit of research – see a future post about how to manipulate YouTube)
- I don’t see this in a lot of other locations, distributed on blogs, etc., which means somebody didn’t do the legwork
Duma Key
You may be surprised that this is my least favourite video of the bunch, and not just because this is a Stephen King cookie-cutter product: blood and gore, etc., etc. Loyal readers like my husband love this stuff, and the video gives them what they want. This is also the shortest – only just over 30 seconds.
Things I like about this one:
- short and to-the-point
- high-contrast graphic imagery makes it easy to see on the smallest of screens, like iPods, etc.
- the book graphic at the end makes it clear what’s being sold, as this is still new for many readers
- release date stated clearly at the end
Things I think could be done better:
- again, no direct link for ordering (Like, haven’t any of these people heard of affiliate programs?)
- perhaps this is too “corporate”, in the sense that it is rather predictable: a new author may consider taking bigger risks to gain an audience
- the imagery is somewhat disjointed, in that there is no “story” to this video – it’s just a bunch of scary stuff with a splash of blood, with nothing to involve the reader and link to something in their own lives (this is really about “features” vs. “benefits” again)
Nineteen Minutes
This video for popular Author Jodi Picoult was produced by AuthorBytes.com, a company that specializes in this type of media – and it shows. I’ve never read any of Picoult’s work because I thought it was something I wouldn’t be interested in. I think I may have been wrong.
Things I like about this one:
- the Author herself narrates the entire video, and there are photos of her periodically that help readers connect with her
- the shock value of the commentary is quite powerful, demonstrating contrast that I suspect will also be present in the Author’s work
- the commentary asks us to think of ourselves in perspective of the book’s subject matter
- the accompanying copy (“Details” in YouTube) is well-composed and easy for bloggers and others to use
- the narration and imagery reference other works by the same Author that have been highly successful and are easily recognized
- this doesn’t need full-motion video throughout to make the message work, and still images are used extremely well
- all the technical gunk is there at the end, such as ISBN number, cover format, page count, etc. which means this video is not just useful for consumers – it’s also very useful for booksellers and other markets
Things I think could be done better:
- again, no direct purchase link (How many times do I need to say this?)
- could be a lot shorter and still tell the story well
- the “clock” intro at the beginning drags a fair bit
- the music selection is not appropriate or powerful, and a better choice would make all the difference in the world
- this has 36k views and yet no comments, so perhaps a few “plants” would attract more viewers, and this may also signify a lack of effort to distribute and make use of this valuable resource
Chris Pirillo (Twitter ID = @chrispirillo) is a genius – in 12 minutes, he got several thousand people to instantly click to his late-night online talk show.
Here’s what Chris posted to Twitter: “Your Twitter avatar will appear in my next video if you reply to this tweet over the next few minutes. :) http://live.pirillo.com/”
I just happened to refresh my screen at the moment he posted this, and instantly sent him a direct reply saying, “@chrispirillo What’s the video about?”
Listen LIVE this Wednesday and call in with your questions for Rick Passek, author of The Freshman FlyFisher. We’ll talk about niche marketing for self-publishers.
You can call in LIVE with your questions at (347) 205-9352 during the show, which runs from 3:30 to 4:40 Pacific Time on Wednesday December 17th, 2008.
Rick is a really entertaining personality, and I was very proud to edit his book. Anyone who is thinking of self-publishing a niche title really should listen to this interview, as Rick really will tell it like it is, warts and all. See you on the air!
On the advice of his publisher, Unger set himself up on LinkedIn with the express goal of promoting his book. In this 13 minute interview, Unger tells us that over half of the visitors on his website have come from LinkedIn and the group that he started. Within 1 month, he had several of his retail locations sell out of his book, and he had gathered over 600 connections.
Unger’s success is probably about the fact that he manages his cross-connections extremely well. He’s a true Renaissance author, in that his product offerings match his communications, he interracts with his group connections regularly, and he is very good at generally putting himself out there. What a good mentor for new self-publishing authors.
Check out this how-to video I just found on YouTube. The next time I catch myself harping about production quality, I’ll remember this “little video that could”.
This video author has created a small and stylish video to tell the world what she does in her spare time – she weaves placemats using an ancient and simple method. Creating something completely mundane might be the last thing you’d imagine being used as an example for quality documentation, but this video moved me. Watch her face as she shows you the flashcards. She’s mysterious, and perhaps somewhat sad, and you want to know what the end of the story will be.
Quality documentation (such as training materials) should all;
- be easily accessed
- be easily understood
- use careful and spare choices of words and language
- be visual rather than theoretical no matter what the subject
- create a storyline to emphasize the learning potential
- engage the reader / viewer on an emotional level
- make use of all new media tools available
- address an appropriate level of detail for the audience
- make the uninteresting parts interesting
- give opportunity for feedback
- be easy enough to produce that we can afford to create more
… and do it all with style.
Have 5:57 minutes of fun while you learn something new, below.
I invite you to call in to the show with your questions from Female Authors at (347) 205-9352. This is a great opportunity to ask a well-respected speaker, author and entrepreneur about your own business.
If you don’t want to dial in live, you can also submit questions via the live chat window available at the link above, or via skype at my user ID: “peggy.richardson”.
My apologies to anyone who was listening today to my BlogTalkRadio.com Christmas special broadcast when we hit dead air about 1/2 way through. There is a “dead zone” in the middle, but if you hang in there, I do actually pick up again not far from where I left off.
It’s a good thing nobody heard my bad language when I realized that the switchboard at BlogTalkRadio had crashed – this is a family show, after all! We did have callers that were cutoff while waiting on hold, and I have no way of finding out who you were. If you comment below and identify yourselves, I promise I’ll make it up to you with a free book from one of my authors, shipped to you just in time for Christmas. (Limit to the first 5 people who comment, please.)
Join me the day after tomorrow when I return to my regular schedule, as Author Chris Flett will be my guest. Chris’ book is published with Wiley, and is titled, “What Men Don’t Tell Women About Business: Opening up the Alpha Male Playbook”. We’ll be talking to Chris about female authors and marketing / positioning your book business.
Here are the the cool Christmas goodies that I have on my advance list for the show that was broadcast today, December 1st on BlogTalkRadio.com, “Christmas Gifts for Bloggers, Writers and Podcasters”. If you missed the show LIVE, you can listen anytime for free using the player in the blue and black box in the column at right.
These links are in no particular order. Thanks again to all those who took the time to respond and send me links to great products. I’m truly sorry that I didn’t have time to talk about all of them on the air.
Thanks for listening! More great shows about publishing and marketing air every second Wednesday at 3:30 pm Pacific Time. Check us out next on December 3rd, when we will have co-host Chris Flett, the “GhostCEO”, on the show to talk about book marketing from a female author’s point of view.
We had such excellent feedback about our podcasts with Kim earlier this fall that I was thrilled when she agreed to answer your questions on the air. This is your opportunity to get FREE advice from an expert in the area of literary publicity. Don’t want to call in? Just send your question right here using the “Join the Conversation” blue comment bar below, or email them to us at info@humanuspublishing.com.
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Twitter ID = @chrispirillo) is a genius – in 12 minutes, he got several thousand people to instantly click to his late-night online talk show.
is published by Wiley in Canada and the USA, and he’ll be here to talk about marketing, especially for female entrepreneurs and authors.