When I Googled “how to change an oven lightbulb,” the first search result was a YouTube video.

And that’s exactly what I wanted. I didn’t want to read about how to do it. I wanted someone to show me how to do it.

I’m not alone. With 2.6 billion users worldwide, YouTube is the second most popular social media platform (Facebook is first). Whether you need instruction, entertainment, or news, you’ll find what you need in a video.

In fact, Tubics reports it’s the most popular search engine for teenagers. (If you write for young adults, now’s the time to perk up.)

This means that YouTube is a powerful marketing tool that can be used to sell books. It also means that you want to use YouTube for book marketing.

Why YouTube is a powerful marketing tool for books

If you’re an author looking to get your work out there, YouTube should be your go-to platform. Here are five reasons why:

1. There’s a huge book community on YouTube.

There are tons of booktubers and bookish channels on YouTube, which means there’s already a built-in audience for your book’s content. If you produce quality videos, you will attract and acquire passionate book fans.

2. You can reach a global audience.

YouTube is available in more than 80 countries and reaches billions of people around the world. This gives you the opportunity to connect with book lovers from all over, no matter where they are.

3. You can connect with other authors.

YouTube is a great place to connect with other authors and build relationships. Collaborate on videos, cross-promote each other’s work, support each other’s careers.

4. It’s a brand-builder.

Use video to share your personality and connect with your audience on a personal level. This can help you attract more readers and followers.

5. It’s a moneymaker.

If you build a large enough following, you can make money from YouTube through sponsorships, affiliate links, and advertisements. This can help offset self-publishing and marketing costs.

How to create a YouTube channel for your book

The process for creating your own YouTube channel is similar to what you’ve done already with your social media profiles. Here are the steps to follow so you use YouTube for book marketing effectively:

Choose a catchy name. Select something that will make people want to subscribe so they’re notified when you add videos.

I use my YouTube channel as a brand extension, so my channel name is Build Book Buzz.

Create a visually appealing channel banner. Make sure it’s consistent with your book’s branding.

Upload a professional headshot as your profile picture. Use the same image that you use on other social networks.

Write your channel description. This is where you’ll tell viewers what they can expect to find on your channel.

Here’s mine: Tips, tactics and tools for generating awareness and buzz about your books. Subscribe to our free book marketing newsletter at http://buildbookbuzz.com/gift.

Start creating and uploading videos. There are so many possibilities! Share book trailers, how-tos, readings, Q&As, behind-the-scenes looks, interviews with others, and anything else you can think of.

A few video basics

You want your videos to be as effective as possible, right? For that reason, make sure they’re high quality and engaging. No one wants to watch a low-quality, boring video, so focus on creating something that’s interesting and will hold viewers’ attention.

“Quality,” by the way, applies to audio as well as video. You’ll lose viewers if your audio isn’t strong and clear.

via GIPHY

Get creative with how you promote your book with video, too. Instead of just doing a standard reading or Q&A, do a book-themed challenge or an interactive video where viewers can help you choose what happens next in the story.

Have fun with it – the more fun you’re having, the more likely viewers are to stick around and watch.

Finally, don’t forget to include a call to action at the end of each video. Let viewers know where they can buy your book or sign up for your newsletter to stay up-to-date on your latest releases.

Getting views and subscribers

If you’re hoping to build a following on YouTube, you’ll need to put in some work. Growing a channel takes time, but if you’re consistent and create quality content, you will eventually see results. Here are a few tips to help you get more views and subscribers:

Optimize your channel

Make sure your channel is set up for success by completing the About section and adding keywords that describe your content. This will make it easier for people to find your channel when they’re searching for topics they’re interested in that you’re addressing.

Create engaging videos

Your videos should be interesting and engaging, offering viewers something they can’t find elsewhere. If your content is enjoyable, people will be more likely to watch it and subscribe to your channel.

Promote your videos

Get the word out about your videos by promoting them on social media and other platforms. You can also run ads on YouTube to reach a wider audience.

Use keywords in your video title and description

When people search for books on YouTube, they typically use keywords such as “book review” or “book recommendations.” When appropriate, use these keywords in your video title and description so that your video will show up in these searches.

People search on YouTube for topic information, too, so be sure to add the right keywords for the topics you’re featuring.

Collaborate with other creators

Teaming up with other YouTube creators can help expose a new audience to your book. Partner on videos, cross-promote each other’s content, and guest star on each other’s channels.

Be patient

As with other social networks, it takes time to build a following on YouTube, so don’t get discouraged if you don’t see results overnight. Keep creating quality content and promoting your channel, and eventually you’ll start to see your subscriber count rise.

How to promote your video

As with blog posts and other online content, you have to help people find your videos. Don’t rely on getting found in search results alone – send people to your videos with these tactics:

• Every time you upload a new video, share it on social media, email it to your list, and embed it on your website – especially if it’s a book trailer.
• Help your video stand out and get more views by creating a catchy title and thumbnail.
• Get discovered by including keywords in your title and description.

Using YouTube for book marketing takes effort

There are many advantages to using YouTube for book marketing, including the simple fact that creating and uploading videos is free. You don’t have to spend a cent to reach your target audience there.

You can also target a specific audience by using keywords and tags that they’ll search for to find videos like yours.

And, if your video is well-done, it has the potential to go viral, which could result in a lot of free publicity for your book.

Even so, YouTube marketing requires a bit more effort than some other options.

You need to create a quality video that will grab people’s attention and make them want to learn more about your book. You also need to proactively promote your video.

If you don’t put in the work, your video is likely to get lost in the shuffle.

What’s the verdict?

Is YouTube for book marketing worth it?

Ultimately, that’s for you to decide.

If you’re willing to put in the time and effort, it can be a great way to reach a wide audience. This is especially true if you’re willing to include yourself in the video (either on- or off-camera), as it will help readers connect with you.

If you aren’t already creating videos, there’s a learning curve. If you’re like me, though, mastering a new skill is not only fun, it’s personally rewarding.

Give it a try! You have nothing to lose.

Are you creating YouTube videos to promote your book? Please provide a link to your channel in the comments.

Editor’s note: I used QuickWrite, the new artificial intelligence (AI) writing software created specifically for authors, to write this blog post. I added new content at the beginning and did a little editing to eliminate some of the “rote” approach to writing, but all of that was far easier than starting from scratch.

QuickWrite’s creator assured me that I don’t need to worry about duplicate content or plagiarism, too. 

AI software won’t replace me, but in some situations, it could make my job a little easier. It did this time.

It’s not something I look forward to, and that’s not just because good hair days don’t come around very often.

It’s because:

• I don’t like appearing on camera (see reference to good hair days above)
• I’m not as familiar as I’d like to be with the technology involved

But I know that because YouTube is the second most popular search engine, I need to load more videos into the Build Book Buzz YouTube channel. This will help more authors discover the free book marketing tips and advice I offer on this site and in the free Build Book Buzz newsletter.

Fortunately, you and I can create videos without appearing on camera — just create a  video with PowerPoint instead, using your slides as the basis of your video.

To help anyone who is just as new at this as I am, I’m sharing the steps I took to create this PowerPoint-based video that I just uploaded. I hope it saves you time, since you’re spared all of the Googling I did to figure out how to do something that’s new to me.

Here’s the video; scroll down for the how-to:

Start with a PowerPoint presentation

With the help of Google, I discovered that if you’ve got PowerPoint 2010, you can save your presentation file in a video format and work with that. I don’t, so I needed Plan B.

I knew that Windows Live Movie Maker, the free software I use that was pre-installed on my computer, lets me create a video from pictures/images, so I looked in the “save as” options in my PowerPoint file to see if I could save it in JPEG (image) format.

Yes!

That arrow is pointing to a drop-down menu that lets you save the file in many different formats. I selected “JPEG File Interchange Format.” When I selected “save,” a new window popped up, asking me, “Do you want to export every slide in the presentation or only the current slide?” I selected “Every slide” from the three options.

That step created a new folder with each slide as a JPEG image. I added them into my new video file in Movie Maker by selecting “add videos and photos” from the “home” tab.

With the images in place, I played around with the software’s auto movie themes to see which one I liked the most. The option I selected added a “slide” at the beginning (the “Build Book Buzz” text that moves across my first PPT slide as the video starts) and three slides at the end for production credits. I could have deleted those extra slides at the end, but I left them in because just between us, adding silly stuff for the end credits is my favorite part of video-making.

How to add narration

With the video portion done pretty quickly, I was ready to add narration. I knew I had to create and add an audio file, but didn’t know how, so I turned to Google again. I found a super helpful video that showed me how to find the computer’s recorder software and then how it use it. (Tip: It’s as easy as pressing the “start” button.)

The instructions told me to type “sound recorder” into the search box. Bam! There it was! Clicking on the search results brought up the recorder software.

To make sure my audio is good, I always use an external microphone, an Audio-Technica ATR-3350 Lavalier Omnidirectional Condenser Microphone. I plugged it in to the side, turned it on, and practiced my narration by speaking while the video ran through in “view/preview full screen” mode.

The video moved too quickly, so I had to adjust the settings so that each image stayed on the screen longer. The default was 7 seconds; I bumped each one up to 12.5 and that seemed to be good enough.

After a few more practice narrations while the video moved through, I was ready to record it with the sound recorder. It wasn’t perfect, but I would have been working on it all day if perfection was the goal. Some days, good is good enough.

I added my recorded narration to the video by going to the “home” screen, selecting “add music” from the toolbar, and selecting the audio file. It was really that simple.

I played the file to make sure audio and video were in sync, saved the file, and uploaded it to my YouTube channel.

I hope this level of detail helps anyone who had the same questions I had. So now it’s my turn to ask a question:

What’s your best video production tip for newbies? What tip can you offer that might either save us time, or improve our video quality?

The Happiest Book Trailer Ever!

By Valerie Alexander

As a screenwriter, I know you can be sure that your script is good if someone who reads it wants to show it to someone else.

That same metric applies to your book trailer. It might be wonderfully filmed, seamlessly edited, and perfectly descriptive of your book, but it will not be fully effective as a sales tool unless someone who watches it wants to buy your book and then shares the trailer with someone else.

While I have no idea what will make a video “go viral” (I think that has something to do with kittens popping a balloon or a pop star twerking), I do know about making a solid, share-worthy book trailer. I’m sharing my tips here, but for them to make the most sense, please watch my trailer first:

1. Make people laugh or cry.

The most effective content is that which causes a reaction in the audience. Because my book is about happiness, I went for funny.

If you’re going for funny, make sure it’s really funny. Test the concept and the script out on friends. When I would talk about the segments I wanted for this video, my friends would be laughing by the second one. That’s when I knew it would work.

If you’re going for heartfelt, really tug those strings. Watch this video below and see how three minutes can completely undo an audience.

2. Don’t rush it.

Don’t rush to get your trailer out there. In truth, no one is waiting for it. Spend a lot of time and thought on the content.

In hindsight, I wish I’d put more thought and effort into my last segment (a re-shoot that I rushed to do), and every time I watch it, I cringe a little that the wording could have been more effective, funnier and sharper, and that I am not coming across as appealing as I’d like to be.

3. Get feedback and LISTEN TO IT.

First-time filmmakers often discover that the vision in their heads didn’t make it to the screen, or worse, what they think they’re saying is not at all what the audience is hearing.

The first cut of my trailer was hilarious, but it ended with me admitting defeat and being stuck with the cheesy Internet trailer, and no further mention of my book. I showed it to my book group and they all said it was hysterical, and that there was no way they would ever buy a book about happiness from the hapless woman in that video.

I had to admit that they were right, so I changed it. When one person tells you something isn’t working, hear them. If everyone tells you something isn’t working, fix it.

4. Production values only matter if they hurt the viewing experience.

My entire video was shot on my iPhone (not even using a special camera app), and with no external mike. I was the cameraperson, and when I wasn’t, it was a friend.

As long as it’s obvious in the picture what’s happening, and the sound is clear and not too distorted, your audience is along for the ride. Your trailer is not going to be screened in IMAX, so don’t sweat how it looks, as long as it’s mostly in focus.

5. Confession: My trailer was not 100% D-I-Y.

I have iMovie on my computer. I even know how to use it. But it mattered too much to me that this trailer be great, and I know a lot of amazing editors, so…I hired one. I paid him $100 and we cut the footage together, then he created the cheesy fake trailer according to my notes (I had shot the fake trailer girl already, but he came up with all of the onscreen graphics – which I love!).

Editing isn’t hard, and with a little practice and any number of free software programs, you can do it yourself. I could have done it, but it would have taken five times as long and not been as good, so I went the professional route.

There are amazing, skilled editors out there, and good places to find them are:

• Mandy.com
• Elance
• Fivver
• Task Monkey
• Your local college film program

6. Put it EVERYWHERE.

There are dozens of sites that showcase videos, and you want your trailer on ALL of them. Why not be where anyone can find you, even if it’s just one person? My book trailer can be found on:

• YouTube
• FunnyorDie
• Vimeo
• DailyMotion
• Veoh
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• My blog
• My Amazon author page (a must!)
• Places I can’t even remember now

This could be one of your most effective marketing tools, so make sure everyone can find it.

I know for a fact that my trailer has led to book sales. I don’t know how many, but the exact count doesn’t matter. Anything that gets people talking about you and your book is going to lead to increased sales eventually, and a trailer that someone sees and says, “I have to show this to my friends!” is going to make that happen more often and a lot faster. You can do it. After all, you wrote a whole book! How hard could a 1-3 minute trailer be?

What’s keeping you from creating the best book trailer ever? What’s holding you back?

Their basic premise is that authors shouldn’t be using PowerPoint to create videos without people. In fact, if you want to learn how to convert a PowerPoint file into video, or to do a “talking into my computer’s webcam” video, don’t buy this book. It has one paragraph on the topic — and that paragraph says, essentially, “You can do better than that.”

The authors say that we should be writing and recording short scripts featuring stories and actors. During their panel, they used their own book trailer as an example.

It’s compelling, isn’t it? Don’t you want a video like this for your book?

You’re storytellers!

“You’re storytellers!” they kept saying. “You’re creative! You can do this.”

Can I? And will their book show me how to do it?

Yes to both.

Have I done it yet?

No.

But that doesn’t matter right now — I’ll make the time for this eventually because I know that even if what I create isn’t top quality, I’ll have fun in the process (and I am all about the fun).

Learn how to script, shoot, edit, share

What counts is that the book walks non-videographers like you and me through the process, covering everything from camera options (Daum and Scott say that point-and-shoot cameras with HD video capability work just as well for this as flip camcorders) to editing software (start with the free software that came with your computer — iMovie for a Mac and Windows Live Movie Maker for a PC) to scripting and casting and shooting. There’s information on the importance of music and how to add it as well as how to share and promote your video.  (Make sure you check out the book’s “cheat sheet” with tips, too.)

Video Marketing for Dummies offers the technical know-how we need to create scripted and acted videos that tell a story. I still need help, though, figuring out the story I might tell and how to incorporate the humor the authors think is essential for video marketing. My new book, Get Your Book in the News: How to Write a Press Release That Announces Your Book, solves a problem for authors, so I can see how I could script a problem/solution story. But making it funny and entertaining? That will take some thought — and probably a brainstorming session with a couple of smart friends and a bottle of Justin cabernet.

Did you create a book trailer or video? Have you seen one that you love? Share the link here!