Using Book Video Trailers to Sell Books

Now that you’ve had your book video trailer made, and you’ve followed all the guidelines for making it as effective as possible, it’s time to promote the video, which in turn will help to promote your book. Following are some ideas for how you can get notice for your video and in turn for your book.

Your Website:Your website is the obvious place to use your book video trailer. Place it on your home page at least during the initial first six months to a year when your book and the video are new. Make sure it is large enough on the website for people to watch, and make sure it only starts to play if people choose to play it. Nothing is more annoying than audio or video that automatically and unexpectedly starts playing and startles the viewer.

Don’t stop at the homepage of the website, however. People who do Google searches may land on a different page of your website first. Make sure you put the book video on the page devoted to selling/buying your book, especially if you have more than one book and different pages for each book. If you have done a lot of radio or TV interviews, you might want to create a “multimedia” page on your website and include the video there as well. Placing the video on your website in three different places isn’t overkill at all-if people have already watched it, they’ll skip over it on other pages, and if not, you have more possibilities they will see it, and it will entice them to purchase your book.

YouTube: YouTube is definitely the video website. Your video may well get more attention there than even on your own website. You will want to make sure the video includes your website address so anyone who sees it will then be able to go to your website to find it. Ask that the creator of your video place it on YouTube. The video will then have a code people can copy so they can promote the video on their own websites-you never know who might like it and want to share it with his own website visitors. (You might even choose to use the embedded code to place it on your website as the easiest way to make it work there.) YouTube also keeps a count of views so you can check to see what kind of attention the video is getting, as well as whether anyone chooses to “like” or “dislike” it or leave comments. Ask your friends to go to YouTube to view the video and write comments about it. That way, other viewers will be more inclined to think well of it and it will look more popular. Make sure you tag the video so it is relevant to other videos. For example, if you’ve written a history book, tag it to other videos about the same area, place, or time in history, or if a romance novel, you might find other videos about love, romance, or other romance authors’ videos.

Presentations: If you do a book signing or you give a talk, bring a computer along or a CD of the video to play for your audience. While your presence as author already builds buzz for your book, the video can give your presentation that extra dose of professionalism and appeal.

Book Fairs and Arts and Craft Shows:Ask the producer of your video to provide you with a CD that loops (repeats) the video so it will play over and over again. Bring your laptop or a TV to these events and play the video. Even if you’re concerned that the repeating audio will annoy the other sellers beside you, you can just play the video without the audio, and you can ask visitors to your table if they would like to see it. Just be sure you look at the screen periodically so your computer does not go to sleep or the video ends and doesn’t repeat. The visual effect of a video will give added credibility to your book and people will be tempted to stop and watch even if only for a minute.

Other Websites: Many other websites exist where you can upload your video. Social networking sites that allow for video uploads include Facebook and MySpace. Put your video on them for all your friends to see. Share the video with all your social networking friends when you first upload it, and then later, as people visit your page, they will have the option to view it. Don’t forget that you can ask your friends to “Share” your video so it ends up on their pages and more and more people see it.

The company who made your book video may also have a website where it showcases the videos it produced so ask whether it will place your video on its site-if it doesn’t have such a page, suggest that it come out with one to showcase its work.

Finally, if you belong to an authors association, the association might also have a place where it announces member events so ask that the release of your video be announced-the association might even have a video page where you can upload it.

Emails and Press Releases: Just as you would with any event, send out an email to your mailing list announcing the creation of your book video trailer and provide a link to where it can be viewed-it’s one more way to make contact with your customers and in a visual way that many of them may be more receptive toward. And there’s no reason why you can’t send out a press release as well. You never know who might find your book video interesting. The local newspaper might never have heard of a book video and want to do a story about it, or viewing the video might be the deciding point for a TV host whether or not you’ll be a guest on the show.

Television: Contact the local television station and ask the advertising executive about doing a commercial. Tell him or her that your commercial is already made and work with the ad executive so your book video trailer, or part of it (commercials tend to be 30-60 seconds and book video trailers closer to 2 minutes), appears on your local television station. We rarely see television commercials for books, so chances are your audience will take notice.

In short, a book video trailer is one more wonderful way you can promote your book and appeal to a larger group of people. The more places you make it possible to view the trailer, the more people who are going to see it, and the more chances you have that your books will sell.

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Three Critical Rules For Working at Home Successfully and a Snapshot of My Daily Routine

Three steps for keeping a good work-life balance at home;ONE: You must get up and get dressed. Don’t work in your bathrobe all day. You MUST shower, shave, put on makeup and dress as if you are going to an office. WHY? Because it will make you feel more professional. You will feel clean and fresh and the result is that you will gain more business and build confidence.TWO: Socialize. You must invite friends over for dinners and go out to movies or whatever you want to do to socialize. People who don’t get out and be with others will get depressed over time. If you are depressed from lack of social activity you will not be as effective as you could be.THREE: Work from a position of strength. Remember that you have knowledge that others need. Knowledge is power and power is a position of strength. Don’t worry if people reject you. They do so because they feel bombarded. It is not personal. Know that your information is valuable and that the people who listen will benefit from your help. Those who don’t want to listen are destined to be left behind. Their loss is not your problem. There are plenty who are eager to hear about your solutions and help their business.I work from home and my job is really awesome. It is not awesome because I can stay at home and be with my family or go boating or snowboarding when i want. It’s not awesome because I make great money and enjoy an enviable lifestyle. It’s awesome because I get to help business owners move into the internet age with an effective, well rounded advertising campaign that only targets the zip codes that are important to their business. It is awesome because I get to also train others to do the same. It is awesome because this is an emerging technology that helps the small brick and mortar business who until now had been left behind with regard to advertising on line.Bottom line – I work hard at what I love. I love helping others while making a living doing what i want when and where i want. And the best part is my kids love it too because dad is around with plenty of money to spend on the better things in life. That to me is Awesome.I get up with my wife at 7 AM and shower while she gets the kids ready for school. I then drive them to school and give them a hug and a kiss and tell them how great they are and how well they can do in school if they work hard like daddy. Then I either go to the gym or back to my home office. I work out regularly to keep fit but also to get out and be with other people. Every day I speak with business owners and TELL them about this emerging online revolution for small business owners. Every day i get calls from other people who also want to live my dream. I tell them about it too.I don’t work a regular work week. I dont have to do that. I can drop what I am doing and let the calls go to voice mail if I want to have lunch with my wife or a friend. If I want to go waterskiing for the afternoon, no problem.However there is no substitute for consistent effort over a long period of time. So I apply a consistent effort over time and the income builds. You see in this business your income is residual. As you build your client base your income grows. As you train others to do the same your income grows. So I work when and where I want at a consistent pace over time.This page is the way to get started whether you are a small business advertiser or someone looking to change their life in a positive way. We all want to live the dream. Dreams are made of good decisions and hard work. However many dreams are fulfilled by being in the right place at the right time. To ride a wave you must be in front of the wave and ride it. This emerging technology is going to surge through the small business community. If you are a person who wants to find something they can do that will change your life then take the first steps toward that goal. Remember, constant effort applied over a period of time yields results.

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Health and Fitness – Concentrate On How Food Makes You Feel

Eating with health and fitness in mind is asking you to begin to look at food differently. We all love a good tasty meal but how often do you pay attention to how food makes you feel? Before it even crosses your mind, let’s take for granted that anything we eat needs to taste delicious whether it is healthy or not. So this is not an article about suffering through some horrible bland super-strict diet. This is certainly not about starving yourself. It is about making healthy choices so you look and feel better.Many of us turn to fitness to look better. Remember that appearance is a reflection of how you feel. If you are strong, flexible, and energetic your appearance will reflect it. So whether you are working out on your latest fitness exercise plan or deciding what to eat, concentrate on how you feel as opposed to just going through the motions. If you exercise, set some goals. Are you stronger today than you were last month? Likewise with food, I not only look to see if I’m leaning down, but do I feel better today than I did last month. Do I have more energy? Is my digestive system working well?The immediate effects of a bad meal are almost instantaneous. You feel heavy, bloated, and tired. Conversely, when you eat well you feel pleasantly full, completely satiated yet full of energy. You avoid the sugar rush and subsequent crash when you eat well. As time goes on it’s not just these short bursts of feeling good, but your energy in the early morning and late night improves as well. You sleep better. You avoid stomach and digestive issues. There is so much upside to eating well that very few of us focus upon. Instead we lament on the sweets and fats we’re missing instead of concentrating on all the good we are doing for ourselves by eating well.Missing food can be just as detrimental to how you feel. If you are the type of person who usually skips breakfast (and roughly half of us are according to studies) you aren’t doing yourself any favours. You body digests food better early in the day, and tends to store food late at night. Skipping breakfast will not help you lean down. In fact, it may contribute to weight gain. And it definitely doesn’t contribute to your energy levels during the day. So don’t skip meals!Eating well in conjunction with a comprehensive fitness exercise plan is the best recipe for health and fitness. Train and eat to be strong, flexible, and energetic and the rest will take care of itself. You can not only change the way you look, but you can change the way you feel. Being healthy will give you a more positive outlook on your whole life.

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