Book trailer videos are the hot, new trend. But the driving question for you is why use these trailers to drive revenue. Some recent data gives ideas for some astonishingly effective ways to use book trailers.
Tip #1: Offer your video on your own web page as well as on your individual YouTube channel. In April, 2010, Anthony Bruno noted that “fans are more engaged with videos posted to individual artists’ Web sites.” Needless to say, they are speaking generally about music videos, but we can easily generalize this to book videos. They report that “29% of the videos streamed on artist and label sites are watched in their entirety, compared to only 12% from aggregation services.” Warner Music Group, then, doesn’t license content to places like Vevo.com. This company, instead, pushes fans to artists sites via custom-branded channels on YouTube. It is advisable to design your own YouTube channel, too.
Tip #2: Tweet on the subject of your book trailer. Bruno further reports, “Another interesting finding is how social media services affect viewing. According to the study, fans linking to online videos via Twitter watch an average of 2:30 minutes, compared to 1:30 minutes on average watched by those finding the same videos via a search engine. Yet 76% of streams on artist or labels sites come as a result of online search, such as Google.” Soon after posting your own book trailer to YouTube along with your website, tweet.
Tip #3: Master and use Search Engine Optimization (SEO).Before you begin distribution of your book trailer, you ought to understand the basics of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). There’s no reason to make a website or book trailer or some other material online if that information can’t be located. That means you want to think similar to a internet search engine. For most internet websites 50%-80% of visitors come from the search engines directly to a website deep inside the site. Each individual website page has to be optimized guaranteeing that engines like google will find it; furthermore, you have to optimize your own book trailer so people will find it.
I can’t supply full familiarity with Web optimization in a single post, you need to study this topic. However one immediate action to take is pay attention to the keywords that can be used to look for both you and your video:
Keywords. On YouTube, you will find there’s difference in tags and keywords. Tags may be used by virtually anyone, whilst keywords are just used if you want to participate in the Promoted Videos ad system. In practice, however, a tag can be described as keyword and is fundamental to the success of your own video given that audiences use tags to browse. You need to know just what keywords individuals are looking for and Google makes it simple making use of their Google Keyword Tool.
Simply put in a couple important words about your video and you’ll get a list of the various ways people search for your information and traffic counts for each keyword or phrase. Use the list to choose what keywords you’ll emphasize for your video. On YouTube.com, you only have about 100 characters for keywords, so choose keywords that are specific to your book.
For example, if you have a WWII history book, in particular about D-Day, you can consider these keywords:
Search Term Number of global searches/month for this keyword WWII 4,090,000 D-Day 1,500,000 d day wwii 5,400
Clearly, you should use WWII and D-Day as your main keywords, not the unhyphenated blend.
If your pen name includes three names, consider omitting the least used name, usually the middle name. You’ll still be found with your first and last names and you can use the valuable space for a more important keyword.
Often, authors want to include the publisher’s name. However, if your publisher has 1000 videos on the hosting service, you must ask yourself this question: will your video come up in top ten responses for that name? If not, then omit the publisher’s name in favor of topical keywords.
Finally, scan the list of keywords for any potential unwanted traffic. For example, the keywords “little girls” might get hits from those looking for pornography. Try to anticipate the audience searching for the keywords you’ve chosen and make sure they are the right audience for your book. Edit your book trailer’s page on YouTube and include these keywords as tags.
Tip #4 Use book trailers as part of your marketing mix. When Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Dark Hunter World (vampire novels) was released in 2008, it was given a tremendous thrust by its book trailer which landed among YouTube’s “Most Viewed” video in late July, 2008. How did the publisher make this happen?
Having a launch date of August 5 for the paranormal romance, St. Martin’s had a substantial investment in a 350,000-copy first printing. They employed experts to develop a 33-second book trailer, Dark-Hunter “Acheron”, then hired Zeitghost Media to manage the promotion. The house delivered an e-mail which included a hyperlink to the video on YouTube.com to 90,000 people at midnight on July 20, 2008, which had been preceded by teasers on July 17 and 18 announcing that something big was coming at midnight on the 20th. Zeitghost Media dispersed the video over the Word wide web, and a multitude of weblogs and Web-sites picked up and continue to feature it. As of this writing, it’s obtained over 375,000 views. Within the Dark Hunter internet site and off-line, they also employed these online marketing resources: Ebook giveaways wallpaper, screen savers, cursors, banners Dark Hunter quiz publicity through media channels such as Publisher’s Weekly Twitter feed, Facebook Fan page, MySpace page, Absolutely free short story to down load
The video was important as a destination for potential readers, but email announcements were used to jumpstart the video. Once on the site, there were other ways to find information about the book. There were downloads, giveaways. In addition, St. Martin’s used traditional press and many social media. Was it the book trailer that made the difference in people choosing to buy the book? Or was it the combination of efforts? No one knows for sure, but it’s likely that it’s the combination that matters.
For your book trailer, consider how it will integrate with your other marketing efforts. Take along a laptop and run the trailer at a conference or convention. Add a link to the trailer in your email signature. Be creative and cross-promote in every way you can.
Tip #5 Use a series of book trailers. In May 2010, Jay Yarow and Kamelia Angelova reported (http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-the-lifecycle-of-a-youtube-video-2010-5) that the shelf life of a video is very short. Half the viewers of a YouTube.com video come in the first six days. 75% of the viewers are within the first 20 days. Of course, there’s going to be a long tail, in which your video gets a few hits/day for a long time. But if you want a high level of sustained interest, you might want to consider a series of videos, distributed 1-3 weeks apart.
Create a mix of formal and informal trailers and, in today’s world, get comfortable with creating videos – and lots of them.
More Tips on Creating and Using Book Trailers for Promoting Your Book