When I say video marketing the first thing that probably comes to your mind is fashion, or sports, or a technology related product. However, video marketing is such a powerful tool that it can be used in other areas as well to create the kind of impact that your product deserves. Have you ever thought of video marketing your book? If you have not, then we hope that you will change your mind by the end of this article.

 

First a few facts (Source)

1. “Readers are 64% more likely to purchase your book if they see a book trailer that effectively promotes your book.”
2. “Visitors to your author website stay an average of 2 minutes longer than on author sites that do not use video.”
Video marketing books do not essentially limit you to book trailers. Book trailers need to be carefully crafted to make the right impact, which is often hard. Opinions are divided on book trailers, but the overall benefits of video marketing your books cannot be overlooked. Especially, when your video enables the purchase of the book directly through the video content, you are providing your readers with a preview and an option to purchase the book in one place. So your book videos are now a one-stop shop to purchase the book. Use Wootag to share details about your book and make purchasing it easier. Here are a few links that will give you all the information you need.

1) 7 Reasons Why Writers Need To Start Using Video For Book Promotion

 

If you have just started considering video marketing for books this is a great first read to understand the why’s and the how’s. Written by Joanna Penn, New York Times and the USA Today bestselling author, Creative Penn covers writing, marketing and publishing books. The above link gives you a basic understanding of how videos help to bring that human connection with your readers and also bring more people to pay attention to your author website. Not just that, this post also gives you links to help you get your video online.

 

2) What you should have before you decide to make a book trailer or video

While this post talks about breaking even high production costs of book trailers, it does not always have to be so. In fact, Creative Penn also gives you easier ways to make book trailers, even using Windows Movie Maker. The most important takeaway from the above article is to know what you should do before you decide to make a book trailer or even a video for that matter. While important points like having an optimized website, a good book cover, and well thought marketing strategy are mentioned, you also have other points which get overlooked easily like an interesting blog and regular engagement with readers.

As mentioned earlier,  book trailers are not the only kind of videos you can make for your books. Author Broadcast is a YouTube channel dedicated to writers and gives you great ideas to generate content around your book. They have author showcases and meetups. Although these videos do not have many views, they help you think about creative content that you can add to your book videos. Remember to use the right channels to share these videos and increase the number of views. Using Wootag features you can enable purchases through the videos and make them more engaging

3) Authors BroadCast

As mentioned earlier book trailers are not the only kind of videos you can make for your books. Author Broadcast is a YouTube channel dedicated to writers and gives you great ideas to generate content around your book. They have author showcases and meetups. Although these videos do not have many views, they help you think about creative content that you can add to your book videos. Remember to use the right channels to share these videos and increase the number of views. Using Wootag features you can enable purchases through the videos and make them more engaging.

4) YouTube’s Free Editor for Book Trailers

This is a great post on using YouTube’s free editor for book trailers, again emphasizing on the fact that book based videos need not to be expensive. As the author RJ Crayton mentions here, you can create videos by uploading single images. Not just that, there are free music tracks available for you to choose from. One of the best things that I like about this post is that the author has created a video for her book using text only, and she has included reviews in the video (scroll down to the end of the post to see the video). Reading the post once I realized that while it is time consuming, it is definitely doable.

5) Think Beyond Book Trailers

We have said this before in this article and we say it again. Book videos do not have to just trailer. Think of your readers and design the content of your videos to make them more fun and engaging. Here is an example video

As you can see the author Gary Vaynerchuk answers questions selected with the help of the #AskGaryVee. This helps your readers to connect with you more easily. Your videos can be Q&A or they can be about some fun aspects of your writing process, or you can even include reviews from your readers. Nothing sells your book better than people talking about how much they enjoyed reading it.

Some more resources

Unspalsh.com– For some great images

This post by consulting editor Alan Rizler gives you some more insight on why book videos work.

Videoblocks.com– A membership only site which gives you access to quality videos for your content.

The internet is flooded with options and ideas to make your book videos the way you want it to be. Once you know the theme for your book video (trailer/ Q&A/ Reviews etc), all you have to do is get the right resources and get started. They are all just a click away. You know what else can be just a click away- purchasing your book. Use Wootag to make your video interactive and enable purchases directly through it. You can also use the analytics provided by Wootag to understand reader preferences, create videos accordingly, and calculate sales effectively. Remember, when these videos are a part of your author page, they will show new readers a quick preview of all that you have published so far. We hope now you are already looking at some of the links we have provided to design your book video. Get Started!!
Important Points

• Think beyond trailers and try to curate the content of your video keeping in mind the theme of your book.
• Use hashtags to connect with readers and discuss some of the points or questions they have asked in your videos.
• Share your book videos in the right places to make the most of them. Apart from websites and channels dedicated to authors you can also include them in your Goodreads page and of course all your social media channels.
• Do not make videos that require high production costs. As shown in this article, there are many resources available to make effective videos for almost nothing.