Why Book Videos Are Making A Splash Online - Interview With The Glossary's Jeremy Dunning

This week I interviewed The Glossary's Jeremy Dunning, New Media Coordinator.

The Glossary is a Los Angeles-based company that designs and creates promotional book "video excerpts". Sending BIG THANKS to Jeremy for taking time out of his busy schedule to answer my questions. He shares and explains why book videos are the hottest promotion for authors right now.

The Glossary has graciously offered a 10% discount off their services to my blog readers so just contact Jeremy and mention you read his interview on my blog, and he can help you! Contact information: Jeremy Dunning, jeremy@theglossary.com

 

1. Please explain why video marketing is important to authors and why they should invest in video - especially for self-published authors who don't have an online presence and are starting from scratch?

Video is the most shared form of media on the internet and to understand its success, you need only look at how YouTube has become such a successful brand in just a few short years.  People like to watch videos, and more importantly, they like to share them.

Not only is video an effective way to entice prospective readers, it’s also the most social-media-friendly form of marketing available.  By using video, instead of just a text synopsis or blurb, you’re greatly increasing your chances that your book’s video will be shared with the people they know. In order to encourage readers to spread the word about your book, they need a form of media worth sharing.

Even starting from scratch, a great video can serve as the foundation of a successful web presence.  It’s the hook, the thing that’s going to get people to look for you elsewhere and hopefully buy your book. 

 

2. What are some of the innovative ways authors can use book videos as part of their internet marketing campaigns?

Your typical online distribution campaign is generally based around sharing the video on sites like YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and hopefully catching the attention of lit-savvy blogs. But with each of these distribution channels, you’re competing not only with other book videos, but movie trailers, home videos, and funny cats.  

In addition to sharing on traditional platforms, creating a unique home for your video is a great way to set yourself apart. By giving each video it’s own website and URL, it becomes a destination that is easily shared with friends, family, and prospective readers without having to share its space with other content competing for the viewer’s attention. From these “splash pages” readers can view and share your video as well as find links to where your book is sold online.

But whatever you do, our advice would be to get creative!  Think outside the box of where your video can live on the web and how this can help turn viewers into buyers.

 

3. A lot of companies throw around the word "book trailers" but I noticed you don't use this terminology affiliated with the services your company offers.

We believe that one of the biggest problems with video book marketing is that it rarely celebrates what it’s actually selling--the written word. The Glossary was created largely due to our belief that the publishing industry suffers from a pretty serious identity crisis when it comes to marketing. Trailers are a fundamentally cinematic device. But books aren’t movies, so why are we marketing them as such?

Even when an author or publisher can spend the money on one of these expensive Hollywood-style trailers, they too often ring false. Why? Because they’re not selling you the experience of reading a book, they’re selling you the experience of seeing a movie version of that book.

We wanted to use video to promote books for what they are--books! To that end, we prefer to focus on the author’s own words to create what we call a “video excerpt” which is brought to life using interesting visuals and sound design.

This way, the author gets all the marketing benefits of using video, while still staying true to what they do best--the written word.

4. What advice would you give to authors who are just starting out with their internet marketing?

The internet is a wonderful tool for empowering the individual.  With a little technical know-how and a lot of hard work, you can successfully publish your book without the help of a traditional publisher, marketing company, or agent.  But just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.  

If you don’t have a strong knowledge base in a particular area--be it social media or creating a video--seek out some help.  You can have the next great American novel, but without proper marketing, nobody is ever going to hear about it.  Handle the parts of the process you know and are passionate about and leave the parts you don’t know, or dislike doing, to a professional.

 

5. Do you think we'll see a bigger trend with bestselling authors and book videos in 2012 or is the trend already happening? Are the traditional publishers using book videos more as part of their promotions? Your thoughts?

You can definitely see it trending more and more towards video.  Already, its hard to find a major Young Adult release that doesn’t have a video behind it. But the real question is, will the quality of the video content be able to stand up to the quality of the writing? So far, this hasn’t been the case, but we’re definitely optimistic for the future.