Your video can make them hand you their heart on a silver platter.

Some authors miss out on this opportunity to connect with their audience because they aren’t familiar with how video marketing works. There are many ways you can use video to market your book. Some of the most popular options are book teasers and book trailers. However, you can also start a YouTube channel where you connect with your readers on a more personal level or even share excerpts from your book.

The first step is deciding how you will create the video. You have a few options here – using video creation software or using a webcam/video camera. While a webcam video allows you to talk “face to face” with your audience and people enjoy personal connection, video creation software that uses slides with images and text can be just as effective for reaching the end goal — selling more copies of your book.

After you’ve decide how to make the video, you have to decide what the focus of the video will be. Do you want it to be a trailer that gives the audience little hints on what the book will be about? Do you want to read and reflect on a few excerpts from your book? Do you want to discuss a topic that’s relevant to your readers?

They're paying attention - but for how long?

Once you begin creating your content, you must remember to keep it short. The longer a video takes to get to the point, the less interested your reader will be. Believe it or not, research suggests that the average attention span of an adult is 7 seconds! That means if you don’t do something to grab their attention in the first 7 seconds, they are not very likely to continue watching.

How do you grab them in the first 7 seconds? Say something unusual (but interesting)! Give them something familiar! Tell a joke! Certainly there are other ways to catch them before they move on to something else, but these are just a few of the most common.

If you aren’t comfortable using either video creation method (or just want someone else to do the work for you), there are many companies that will create these for you – including Outskirts Press. Each service provider offers varying degrees of production quality – with some offering a less expensive “slide show” option and others offering film-quality trailers with actors/actresses, props, etc.

Here is an example of a book video trailer solutions for a self-publishing authors that we also distributed to a wide variety of social and video networking sites.

60-Second Book Trailer

HOW TO GET A BOOK VIDEO TRAILER

It’s easy. Regardless of whether you are self publishing with Outskirts Press or not, you can conveniently and securely order the book video trailer by clicking the big green button. We handle everything!

Fast, flashy, and fun, the book teasers are an ideal, cost-effective way to kick-start your online video and social networking promotional efforts for your book.

With sites like YouTube, Twitter, MySpace, and LinkedIn getting all the social networking buzz, the question stops becoming WHERE to network and starts becoming WHAT to network.  Having a fun, exciting, and short video is exactly the type of content that is popular for these social networking and video sharing sites.

That’s where the 30-Second Teasers come in. You will receive a high-quality .mp4 video file that you can immediately upload to sites like YouTube and iTunes and then start embedding onto your social networking pages on FaceBook, MySpace, and elsewhere.

Each teaser highlights the cover of the book, the title, the price, the online availability, and the author’s photo if provided during the book production phase.  Every teaser is visually different.

Here’s a sample of a book teaser we produced for one of our Amazon bestsellers, Mary Singer Wick:

The purpose of a book teaser is to capture attention for the book.   Mission accomplished!

This is different from our other video and distribution service, the Book Video Trailer option, where the author can customize the video more specifically to arrive at an overall tone for the video. Once the professional 60-second book video is produced, the .wmv file is provided to the author and is also distributed to all major social video sharing sites like YouTube, Viddler, Google, Aol, Yahoo, and others.

For comparison, here is the 60-second Book Video Trailer we produced for Mary.

Regardless of whether you want a fast, flashy teaser, or a longer, more customized book video trailer, Outskirts Press can help you get your social networking and video sharing promotional efforts off to an exciting, high-quality start.   Outskirts Press published authors can order either option, or both, from the Marketing Options screen of their Author’s Center.

Not yet published with professional marketing options like these?

INTRODUCING THE BOOK VIDEO CD Option.
Add your book video to custom CDs.

If you already have an Outskirts Press Book Trailer, you may want to include it with your book for offline marketing efforts when contacting reviewers, journalists, or producers.  Then this new service is for you!

Option Details:

We will take your Outskirts Press produced Book Video trailer and create 5 custom-labeled CDs that automatically play your video when placed into a computer. These CDs are a perfect addition to your press release and sales sheet when pitching your book to a reviewer, journalist, producer, or other member of the publishing industry or media.

 

The auto-starting CDs require Windows XP or Windows Vista and Media Player 9.0 installed.

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Do you have a fantastic book video trailer from Outskirts Press?

Put it on custom-labeled CDs so you can use it for your offline marketing purposes, as well.

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HOW TO ORDER:

Order the Book Video CD option from within your Author’s Center on the Marketing Options screen to receive 5 custom-labeled CDs featuring your Book Video. Additional packs of 5 Book Video CDs are available for purchase as well. 

See what authors have to say about the amazing Book Video option from Outskirts Press.

“Wow! We’ve been amazed at the response to the video trailer for Writing as a Small Business. Barely 48 hours and we’ve had nearly 200 views at the different sights. Personal e-mails are overwhelmingly positive, “Slick,” “Right on Target,” “Very Professional,” “Fantastic,” and “Best I’ve seen.” The editing process was excellent, the staff followed our suggestions and went a step further. Thank you and your staff for developing this vital marketing tool for your authors. As Writing as a Small Business stresses a web presence is vital and the wave of the future for marketing and selling books. You all proved it.” – Nash Black

 

“When I first viewed the video, I didn’t know what to expect. Then, WOW! You and your staff did a spectacular job with both the video and audio! I wrote and produced TV commercials for years and even won a CLIO, and I’m very impressed with your production! The quality of your work is impressive. Thank you for doing such a wonderful job for me!” - David Brookover

King & Queen
by C. A. Thomas

Relationship Selling
by Atul Uchil, PhD

The Days of Peleg
by Jon Saboe

Are you excited to publish your book and begin the adventure of marketing it using 21st Century tactics like these?