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Guest post by D’vorah Lansky

Video is the most effective way to connect with your online audience because they can both see and hear you. This medium permits viewers to get to know you and find out more about your book. Adding video to your website and marketing campaign is one of the smartest things you can do. Video captivates your visitors, provides them with a warm welcome and keeps them on your site longer, so they are much more likely to take action.

Creating Web video might seem intimidating but the truth is that it can be easy, affordable, and even free. Creating Web video can also be a great deal of fun. You can either record your message with the camera facing you or you can create a screen capture video, using a free software program such as JingProject.com, and record something that is displayed on your computer screen. The technology has advanced to the point where it is easy to record a video, even if you are not a technology expert.

How Authors Can Use Video to Market Their Books

There are unlimited possibilities as far as what you can create videos of. Here are a few suggestions for you to draw from:

Create a video book trailer. Market your book by creating a video book trailer which you can post on YouTube and on your website. A video book trailer is a short video or multimedia presentation that helps to promote your book. Typically, it is less than two minutes, and a thirty-second to one-minute video can have even more impact, as people are more likely to watch it all the way through. The goal of your video trailer is to get people emotionally involved in your book by identifying a pain or a challenge and sharing a solution.

The simplest way to create a video trailer is through the use of images, PowerPoint slides, video clips, voiceover, music, and sound effects that paint a story that invites your viewers to get emotionally involved in your book. An extremely simple way to create a video trailer is with an online program at Animoto.com. Simply upload images, select an audio track from a wide selection available on the site, click a few buttons and upload your video to YouTube.

Read a chapter of your book aloud. This is a wonderful way to connect with your audience as authors have been doing readings in person at bookstores for decades. You are simply keeping up with these technological times to reach a much larger audience of prospective buyers. You can either face your webcam or you can narrate while displaying PowerPoint slides to create a delightful presentation.

Record a video interview. Have someone else ask you a series of questions related to your book. Create a webcam video or a PowerPoint video of you sharing an aspect of the book, why you wrote the book, and how people can benefit from the content in your book.

Create a video book. We’ve all heard of audio books. What about creating a video book? You can create an abbreviated, separate video for each chapter and take your reader on an audio-visual journey through your book. This also provides you with an upsell product and/or a special give-away for those who purchase your book during your book launch or through a special promotion. At the same time, it is a teaser opportunity to get them to buy and read the entire book.

What ideas do you have?

Hopefully these ideas have stimulated some ideas of your own. What ways can you see yourself using video to share the message of your book? 

About the Author

D’vorah is the bestselling author of Book Marketing Made Easy: Simple Strategies for Selling Your Nonfiction Book Online - Visit her book blog and check out the full virtual book tour schedule at: www.BookMarketingMadeEasy.com.

D’vorah offers programs for nonfiction authors interested in growing their brand and their book sales through online book marketing practices and strategies. You can purchase her book on Amazon at: www.BookMarketingMadeEasy.com/amazon

I read a lot of business books, and too many of them are so dry you could use them for sawdust.

Last year, I happened to meet Kevin Daum at a dinner party Sam Horn threw in Washington, DC (where neither of us live) and we connected quickly and personally. Kevin is a sales and marketing guy who has a similar approach to mine, and he’s also someone who can write. He’s even working on a book about Green business!

Kevin’s latest book, Roar! Get Heard in The Sales and Marketing Jungle, is a classic business parable of the sort popularized by Ken Blanchard. I’ve read a lot of these. What’s especially interesting about this one, in addition to the quality of the writing is what he calls the “3500-year-old sales process,” rooted in, of all things, the metaphor of the Four Sons from the Passover Seder.

And it’s impossible NOT to get the message that every company employee needs to know how to highlight the company’s strengths and points of differentiation, both in general and to specific types of buyers with specific concerns.

As a marketer, you can learn a lot just by watching this book launch. Kevin is doing something very smart: he’s building his preorder list months in advance. And he’s built in lots of try-before-you-buy (something else I recommend). He’s even managed to find a bcouple of independent bookshops to do discount coupons. So you can go visit http://www.awesomeroar.com/index.htmand see a brief video, grab a couple of sample chapters, and read dozens of blurbs (including one from me). and of course order your advance copy, if you’re so moved. You can also read Kevin’s wonderfully transparent blog about his “Quest for the Jewish Super Bowl Ring”: to launch as a New York Times bestseller (where he’s not afraid to discuss failures in the campaign as well as successes).

Not a big surprise either that Kevin is a master networker who’s asked a lot of important people to help out. I’m glad to be in that category, and happy to alert you to what he’s doing.