If you are trying to sell ebooks to mobile readers (and who isn’t?) you must read this post by blogger Piotr Kowalczyc. The entire post is written in bullet points, with exact instructions on how to sell more ebooks to mobile phone readers.

(And by the way, this is precisely what I do every day. Trust me. It definitely does sell more ebooks.) I might add, that you can use your own affiliate link (Amazon calls these “Associates” when referring traffic to your own books. He also gives great points on using hashtags on Twitter.

Here are the first few lines of the post, just to whet your appetite:

“If you are a self-publisher actively using social media to find readers and draw their attention to your books (probably published in an electronic form), this post is for you.

I’d like to share a simple way to make your e-book available for instant purchase by mobile phone users. As you’ll see – it’s very easy.”

Good luck!

I’ve been saying for some time now that if you don’t start to take video seriously as a major marketing/educational medium, you and your book or other business are toast.

In this article on Biznik.com, Contributor Michael Shuett (who works with a video production company in Washington State) clearly states it yet again. “Being without a professional video will soon be equivalent to not having a website; it will be as necessary as it used to be to have a listing in the Yellow Pages.”

Shuett offers statistics from the Unica State of Marketing 2010 study, which clearly demonstrates that most organizations intend to use video (especially in mobile social media content) this year as part of their marketing strategies. We have known for some time that search results always favour video content over any other content, including text, blog updates, and even audio.

The big obstacle for most of us? We freak out when someone suggests that we should be on camera. I also have a face made for radio, but I still get up there and do video regularly. Consider these options for freaked-out video creators;

• Narrate A Slide Show: This is the least threatening and easiest way to start with video. If you do any sort of speaking or teaching, a good first video exercise might be to take one of your training sessions and simply narrate it while you flip through your slides. This way, only your voice is present, and people will see your presentation, not your face. You can use a variety of tools to create this, including Jing (free) and/or Camtasia (not so free).
• Prioritize Audio Quality: Use a good quality microphone – sound quality is essential. You can get away with crappy lighting and bad photography if people can still hear your message, but if they can’t hear you, they stop watching. A headset is my preference, and seems to get the best results, partly because it’s maintained at a steady distance from my mouth at all times and doesn’t move around. However, I recognize that this can make you look like you’re trying to launch a space shuttle. If you’d prefer a handheld (and there are cases where I prefer a handheld – see a future post about that) you can get away with a surprisingly affordable one. I paid about $160 US for my headset a couple of years ago (here’s a link to something similar – very comfortable, as I wear these a lot) and about $35 for my handheld (including shipping) on eBay. Test everything before you start shooting. (Best tip: be sure the microphone switch is turned to the ‘on’ position. No joke – I’ve done it.)
• Do It Yourself: Although Shuett suggests that video should be professionally-produced or nothing, I must say that I disagree. Video created on-the-fly with a gritty home-grown quality can provoke a better response than professional quality. I mean really, who trusts a script? (You can always tell when it’s a script and someone’s reading from a cue card.) It’s so easy to just sit in front of your webcam and make a fast recording. I’ve even created video while driving. (Safely and legally, I swear.) Homegrown is better than nothing.
• Use YouTube’s Natural SEO Benefits: The overwhelming majority of video viewed on the web these days is still ultimately hosted on YouTube.com. When uploading a video there, you’ll be prompted with a variety of fields, including one specifically for keywords. (Be sure to do your keyword research up front.) Don’t neglect all these other fields – fill them out completely! People don’t necessarily have to find your very own website to discover you. Simply searching YouTube will help them find your video, and this will lead them back to your site, because of course, your URL is clearly present there for them to click on.
• Don’t Edit: After the first few years dealing with editing video, I’m now really a one-take sort of girl. If I mess up seriously, I’ll re-take it, but I hate chopping in second cameras, voiceovers, etc. What a drag, and a delay to posting. I just shoot and post. I will vaguely outline what I want to say verbally before turning on the camera, but I rarely even write it down anymore. If you know your stuff, it comes easily anyway.
• Be Funny: This is synonymous with being real, keeping it loose, etc. Boring = viewers who leave. Funny = believability. If you’re not naturally funny, don’t try to fake it, but keep it friendly at least.

Recently, for the first time, I was recognized in a crowd at a business event, because people had seen me on video. They already trusted me and my company, because they had seen me talk about their subject, and they knew my style. I’ve always said, if a fat chick in her late 30′s isn’t credible these days, who is? It’s the one thing I have going for me. (Along with good teeth.) Find out what you’ve got going for you, and use it on video.

If you haven’t heard of @FeliciaDay, you’re missing out on the next Carol Burnett. She’s what I call a next-generation storyteller – and here’s why.

Of course she’s beautiful, hysterically funny, and wickedly clever, but more importantly: she understands what technology will do for her. It’s not what you’ve got, but how you use it.

Day’s Wikipedia entry reads like someone much older than her youthful 30 years. (Like, turned down acceptance to Julliard? Whoa.) A master of a number of art forms, she is an accomplished violinist, opera singer, dancer, screenwriter, actor and scholar. Her real new media fame came in 2007 when she embraced web video for her project “The Guild”, which is a web comedy available for viewing and download on a variety of web video sites, including iTunes.

But, what makes her a “next-gen storyteller”?

Two things: extension and technology. It’s not just that she has a trendy web show based on computer gaming – it’s waaaaay beyond that.

Day makes high quality and often personal connections with her audience, both real and virtual. She regularly mingles with fans at various conferences (such as ComicCon in San Deigo each year) and many live screenings and non-profit events. She understands that the story extends off the screen, however small it may be. Then, she uses all technology mediums available to her to extend this story, including a wide variety of social media outlets, and even a music video (“Do You Wanna Date My Avatar”) in which she sings and dances to a song of her own composition. (To-die-for-funny: $1.99 on iTunes.)

Check out this timeline:
- 2007: releases first season of “The Guild” loosely based on her own experiences as an avid player of online games. The primary outlet is YouTube, and it’s free. Halfway through this year, she grabs a Twitter ID and starts posting.

- 2008: At least partly thanks to exposure from The Guild, Day is cast in a variety of other parts, including the genre-defining “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog” (another web comedy).* She even has a guest spot on the TV series House. She also releases Season II of The Guild, and works on another web project with her Guild co-star Sandeep Parikh, Legend of Neil. MSN makes a deal with The Guild to expand releases to XBox Live, MSN video, and Zune, and suddenly, Day is earning money from this venture.

- 2009: The third season of The Guild is released to its’ now rabid fans, and Day herself achieves one of the most coveted social media trophies: the #3 most-followed person on Twitter. (As of now, she’s somewhere around #50.) She also continues to guest star on a variety of mainstream TV shows like Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse.

Just three crappy years, and it appears that she’s so busy doing web video that she no longer has time to pursue work in film, which is much more risky and far less fun.

Day uses all that the web has to offer: iTunes is just the tip of the iceberg, even though for most this would be considered killer bread-and-butter distribution. The deal with MSN is freakin’ brilliant, allowing her to penetrate even deeper into the community that has supported her from the beginning: online gaming. She’s every Gamer’s dream girl.

Like Madeline Kahn and Mae West before her, she plays down her obvious beauty, and writes, directs, acts, and allows her comedic nature to help her story. She is one of those multi-talented women that has been allowed to explore her creativity – and we love her for it. She is still warmly received by her community, and often pokes fun at the roles she’s played, and any possible criticisms of ‘selling out’ (Parikh: “Where’d you get all this money? We make a web series..??!!??”) by making even more content with that community.

I have to admit, my favourite part of this story is the music video. Again, quality rules: the crossover only works because it’s actually a good song. It offers the other cast Members a chance to really strut their stuff along with Day. (Wow – check out Parikh’s backflip, and it turns out Okuda is a fantastic dancer.) Her people love her, and she loves them right back.

Can anyone replicate this recipe? Of course. If you can’t cook, ally yourself with people who can: Felicia allies herself with technology experts (even though, importantly, she has a strong grasp of the technology herself) and with other actors and creatives.

The NG Storyteller never goes it alone, but they boldly blaze the trail for those that support them.

*DHSAB is a creation of the brilliant Joss Whedon, inventor of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (where she has previously guest-starred), Firefly, and a string of other mainstream and web hits.

Don’t spend valuable time creating your viral marketing video until you examine these simple-but-important tips. All of them are FREE, but essential.

If you’ve heard about video marketing, but are unsure how to really hit the streets with it, all that we’re talking about is creating a small video that helps to generate awareness and enthusiasm around your book, ebook, or other product. You can easily create videos yourself, or hire the pros to do it for you. The video is then distributed through social media channels like YouTube (and other video outlets), FaceBook, Twitter, on blogs, etc. The idea is to use the video as an automated sales device, driving buyers back directly to you or your retailers. You can read an earlier article I wrote about this subject by clicking here.

1. Display the URL on every single frame. Any simple video editing software (yes, including Windows Movie Maker) will allow you to do this in one way or another such as a simple band across the bottom of every frame that displays the URL where people can go to purchase the book.

2.Be sure you have a landing page in place before you release the video. It’s no use inviting traffic unless you have a place to drive that traffic. Simply driving traffic to your standard website is not enough – be sure that you create a page or mini-site especially designed to sell your book.

3. Keep it short and sweet. Videos with long, useless intros or dragging scenes that frustrate the viewer are wasted screen time. Chop them out. The entire video should be less than 90 seconds, and 30 seconds is ideal.

4. Include the techy stuff. In the book universe, people need to know stuff like page count, ISBN, distributors, etc. A teeny splash page at the end is enough to convey this clearly. All products have some sort of techy details, like pricing, style and size choices, etc. Be sure to give the basics for interested potential buyers.

5. Take into account multiple audiences. Authors need to direct the video at not just readers, but also booksellers, reviewers, librarians, etc. These may have many of the same needs, but including a few different details to address each of these viewers is important. This can be done carefully without diversifying too much.

6. Use humour. Who wants to watch a boring, dry, video? Unless your video is about the stress of bankruptcy or the death of a loved one, there’s always a way to use a gentle hand with a bit of a smile. Your goal is to keep them watching until the end. (And in the case of death or bankruptcy, the smile comes from the relief you provide.)

7. Don’t neglect the metadata fields. In YouTube (98% of all viral web videos are distributed by YouTube*) there are fields that you can add a description, keywords, and other behind-the-scenes stuff that gets picked up by the search engines. This is what makes the video viral – it gets found when people search. Do your keyword research and get that stuff nailed down before you even start creating the video.

See a future article very soon about keyword research, which should be the first thing you do before you even think about creating your video.

* See this additional article for similar stats and info.

Here’s my short video spilling some of the great items I found on the show floor (figuratively, not literally…) at Blog World Expo 2009.

During this evening’s closing keynote speech, there was a running gag about Kevin Pollock selling his badge to people in the crowd. I think in the end he got a nickel for it. So, after the session, I went up to Mr. Kawasaki and offered him $1 for his speaker badge, which he turned around and handed to me with his trademark big smile.

Guy was a fantastic host this evening to an incredible panel. He’s a brilliant business strategist and Author. I think this badge is worth a few bucks to contribute to the #beatcancer Twitter campaign that’s been going on this week at Blog World Expo here in Las Vegas.

What do you think? What should I do with it? Comment or tweet me.

Here’s a clip I took today during this morning’s keynote at BlogWorld, “The Death and Rebirth of Journalism”, with a panel consisting of (from left to right) Joanna Drake Earl (Current TV COO), Don Lemon (CNN News Host), Jay Rosen (Journalism Prof at NYU and Blogger), and Hugh Hewitt (Radio host and lawyer). The panel was moderated by  Brian Solis (Principal of FutureWorks).

In this video, Don Lemon is describing his feelings about social media vs. big media.

I should note that Mr. Lemon took a few major checks against the boards this morning at this panel discussion, and in my personal opinion, while some of them were rather tough, some of them were deserved. There were some heated moments when I turned my head to see if there were any security guards in the room. Being that I was sitting in the very front row, not 10 feet away from these panelists, I admit at times I felt rather uncomfortable, uncertain how far people might exercise their obviously strong feelings.

The essential points from the Blogger community amount to that they find traditional media to be slow, cumbersome, incomplete, and not without a certain amount of unjustified self-assurance that comes across as arrogance. The traditional media claims not to feel threatened by social media, and furthermore, they want to work with social media to form a more “horizontal” system of news gathering and distribution, rather than a “vertical” one. “Let us in the loop,..” they ask. (This particular comment inflamed the Bloggers in the audience, who felt that they were being asked to do the “dirty work” of data-gathering for journalists, rather than being treated like equals.)

Another heated point related to the issue of fact-checking. While it’s true that the gatekeepers of traditional media make judgements about what to report based on what they feel will be of greater interest to their viewers (read=have greated ad-selling potential), they also perform an essential task when reporting on events: fact-checking.

Lemon openly stated that of course the system could not be perfect, and it was simply not possible to fact-check every single bit of information before it makes the airwaves. Bloggers however, want it understood that while there are some “bad apples” who perpetuate misinformation, perhaps maliciously or more often simply out of ignorance, most bloggers consider themselves ethical enough to want only to report that which can be substantiated and which they know to be true and accurate.

The debate will doubtless rage on for decades more, but this was a very interesting event for me to witness. As I said, heated moments, which made for stimulating and thought-provoking conversation for the rest of the day.

Here I am posing in a very fuzzy picture with Aaron Yonda (left) and Matt Sloan, the creators of Chad Vader, the viral YouTube sensation. Sloan and Yonda’s creation is housed through their company and website, BlameSociety.net.

I was eager to hear these two speak for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that I was extremely curious about what sort of brain could imagine a world where Darth Vader’s doppelganger is the night manager at a small grocery store in the middle of suburban America. But more importantly, I wanted to know how they did it – the real nuts and bolts.

The answer is surprisingly simple: they had an idea, found some friends to help them create it, put it up on YouTube, and then did plenty of unsophisticated marketing to get traffic to the video. It has now grown to the point where both of them can make a living at this, and although they are very frank about the fact that they’re not yet millionaires, they are also clearly excited by the attention from the film and television industries. Their next project will be one of many they currently have on the go, all of which will be bigger, but still retain the wacky edginess that is their trademark grass-roots approach loved by millions. (Yes, millions.)

Just like many internet video geeks, I have a bottom drawer full of screenplays, idea files, magazine and newspaper clippings, sketches and outlines. Coming up with the ideas is not hard for most of us, but figuring out a way to make money from the ideas is often difficult, and what Sloan and Yonda clearly demonstrated for me today is that it does not need to be difficult. We only imagine it must be.

Like most internet content, the way to make money by giving stuff away is through affiliate marketing, which is driven by traffic. Most of BlameSociety’s revenue still comes from the ads that overlay their YouTube videos. They increased their traffic by approaching other video creators and offering to partner, trade services, trade traffic, and so on. They identified key players and then wrote them personal emails asking to do things like add trailers for their videos to the backend of the other producer’s videos. They used every trick on YouTube’s cheat sheet. They created parodies of current YouTube “hits”, and then capitalized on sideways traffic. They maxed out all the basic avenues – they didn’t invent crazy systems, use cutting-edge new video distribution services, or even host their videos on any other service except YouTube. They committed to a single path, and worked it baby, worked it.

I reflect that much of what I’ve witnessed on this trip relates to taking a single brilliant idea to the max. What happens when a great idea is really given the full chance it deserves? Is given resources? Is given freedom?

I mean seriously, if someone pitched an idea to you about dressing up as Darth Vader in a rented costume and making videos at night in the local grocery store, would you really be ready to leap at that at first soundbite?

And yet, break it down: it was almost risk-free, in the sense that they made the videos themselves on a shoestring budget. There was no corporate boss or overhead to please, so by doing what they themselves thought was funny, they at least had fun making it. They learned lessons as they went. I see that as a no-possible-loss situation.

P.S. Sloan and Yonda treated us to the world premiere of episode 9 of Season 2 this afternoon. It’s the second-to-last episode planned, and trust me, you’re going to love it!

I’m heading to Blog World Expo again this year for some educational fun. Speakers this year include Guy Kawasaki, Chris Brogan, and Chad Vader.

OK, I admit I’m most excited about seeing Chad, the internet video sensation created by Matt Sloan and Aaron Yonda. Everyone’s favourite grocery store night manager, Chad has captured more than my own heart. (Even George Lucas gave it his thumbs up.) My main mission at the Expo this year is to go to sessions about podcasting, and the brains behind Chad Vader’s viral video success are two that I wish to pick, if only from a safe distance, down there, in the audience. Perhaps I can sit next to Chad’s girlfriend Clarissa.

What’s your own podcasting mission for your enterprise? Lately, I’ve become more bipolar in my own approach, as I created a more polished set of videos for TheBookBroads.com’s YouTube channel, and yet streamlining my “joie de le moment” approach for certain cell-phone generated video content. (Soon to be released.) There are advantages to each approach, and I enjoy doing both.

I will be interviewed and interviewing all weekend at the show, October 15th through the 17th, from the show floor and various locations around Las Vegas. You’ll find any new videos at the Wizard of eBooks’ new YouTube channel at YouTube.com/wizardofebooks.

I’ll be happy to do my best to honour any special requests for specific blog or podcasting-related info from the show made via email, Twitter, or comments on this blog.

What does it take to make the top 100 Tweeters? Check out these interesting facts about the world’s most popular popularity contest.

As you read this, remember:

• TwitterCounter.com tracks 4,069,598 Twitter accounts.
• These stats were taken as of 19:00 GMT -8, August 25, 2009
• Some of the definitions below are rough descriptions because some things on Twitter (and the internet in general) seem to defy description.
• Note that this list is of those with the most followers. This does not take into account two other important stats on Twitter: who is following the most people (and the ratio between that and followers), and who has the most Tweets.

If you examine the top 100 list at TwitterCounter.com, you’ll notice the following trends…

• Ashton Kutcher is still number one. Nobody really knows why.
• The White House ranks dead last, at number 100. (But Obama himself ranks #9.)
• Twitter themselves only rank #5 in their own arena.
• Two of the top 100 are not human: they are cats. (Sadly, there are no dogs represented.)
• A cat (Socks) is more popular than the White House, Larry King, Levar Burton, John Legend, and Nightline.

Of the entire population of the top 100 people;

• Only 7 of the top 100 are not Americans.
• Only 2 are strictly political, non-corporate entities: the White House, and #10 Downing Street
• There are still nearly twice as many men as women on Twitter, as individual ID’s go: 24 women to 43 men.
• 29 of the top 100 are corporate entities, tweeting for marketing purposes.
• Only two of the individual identities are (publicly) not heterosexual.
• Of the individual entities, only 9 are of African-American descent. This includes Oprah, Athlete Shaquille O’Neal, the President, Rapper and Marketer Sean Coombs (P. Diddy), Rapper 50cent, Rapper Soulja Boy, Singer Mariah Carey, Rapper MC Hammer, Actor Levar Burton and Singer John Legend. (Again, notice that only two of these are women.)
• The top three seem to be indicative of most of the list: Ashton Kutcher (white American male), Ellen Degeneres (white American woman / philanthropist / slightly quirky / stylish / TV star) and Britney Spears (white American entertainer, of a sort).

I must ask myself:

• If we are using Twitter for marketing purposes, how many of us know for sure that this is our market, or are we just racking up numbers?
• If Twitter is designed for mobile use, and the biggest group on Twitter is men, does that mean that more men than women are using their cell phones for more than just making phone calls?
• Why in the hell are people following Ashton Kutcher?