YouTube and Your E-book

YouTube and Your E-book

There is a myriad of different ways to leverage the Internet to build a brand image for your e-book publications, but none are more potent than online video.

The growth in the popularity of online video sharing sites like YouTube, Vimeo and Daily Motion present a unique marketing opportunity for e-book publishers. But what exactly are these opportunities? In this post, I will examine some of the reasons why e-book publishers should be considering the use of online video to build brand awareness for their products.

YouTube, by far the largest of the online video sharing sites, is considered the Mecca of online video and for a good reason. Recent viewing statistics for YouTube point to an upward trend amongst Internet users for video content. Here are some vital stats for YouTube courtesy of http://www.website-monitoring.com:

1. YouTube has more than 2 billion views every day

2. The average YouTube visitors spend 15 minutes per day viewing videos

3. Seventy percent of all YouTube traffic comes from outside of the USA

4. Partner ad revenue had more than tripled in 2009

5. YouTube is monetizing more than 1 billion video views globally every week

6. The number of advertisers using display ads has increased 10 fold during the last year

7. Hundreds of millions of YouTube videos are watched every month on mobile devices

8. YouTube player is embedded across 10’s of millions of websites

9. YouTube video consumption across social media networks:

· Facebook – 46.2 years of video watched every day

· MySpace – 5.6 years of video watched every day

· Orkut – 12.7 years of video watched every day

· Hi5 – 1.2 years of video watched every day

With YouTube’s massive audience penetration, it is not difficult to see why you, as an e-book publisher, should be choosing online video as part of your marketing effort.

Contrary to popular belief, online video is not difficult or expensive to produce. Video production companies, such as Contrast Design, can provide high-quality online video for a modest investment, an investment which is indeed within reach of most online marketers. If you are feeling creative and have access to video making technology, then you can always create your own online video. Making your online video yourself is much cheaper than employing someone else to do it for you.

Once completed, your online video can be uploaded to the video sharing site of your choice. The great thing about sites like YouTube is the fact that you can upload your video for free.

Many video sharing sites offer online marketers some packages for building brand awareness. The most popular of these is YouTube’s Brand Channel. Using YouTube’s Brand Channel, however, doesn’t come cheap at $25,000 per channel, and for the small e-book publisher or online marketer, it does not represent a viable marketing option.

A more attractive option is to use YouTube’s standard user’s package. YouTube’s standard user’s package will cost you nothing. And while you won’t have access to the same features as Brand Channel, you can still create a fan following for your e-book publications by using targeted video content.

An alternative to YouTube is the French-based video sharing website Daily Motion. At the time of writing, Daily Motion gets over 72 million viewers per day, not as many as YouTube but still quite a significant number when it comes to a viewing audience.

Daily Motion has 26 categories for listing uploaded videos, including a business category aimed at helping small businesses and marketers to build brand awareness. Unlike YouTube’s Brand Channel, building brand awareness on Daily Motion requires no media investment. It is free. The only costs you are likely to incur will come from creating exciting video content for your audience.

With over 50 video sharing websites available to online marketers, the potential for building a solid brand image around your e-book publishing business is enormous and need not cost you cost you an arm and a leg.

Writing E-books: The Hottest Marketing Tool on the Web

With so many e-books available on the Web, the need for a dynamic marketing tool to make your e-book offering stand out from the rest of the crowd is a must. However, selecting the appropriate marketing tool for your e-book is not easy given the array of competing marketing tools available to you on the Web. Your choice of marketing tools range from pay for click advertising, blogging, article marketing, forums, social networks and online video, to name but a few.

Of all the online marketing tools available on the Web, online video represents the most versatile, most cost-effective and most value-added asset you can choose. If you are not using online video to promote your e-book, then you could very well be missing out on a lot of potential sales.

Here are six reasons why you should be using online video to promote your e-book:

· Online video has the power to engage your audience faster than any other medium

· More and more people are tuning into online video: In the UK alone, the number of people watching online video went from 6 million in 2006 to over 17 million in 2010

· There are over 50 free to upload video sharing sites on the Web

· Youtube, alone, has more than 490 million unique visitors every month

· Youtube and Google Video are not just video sharing sites – they are search engines

· Youtube is the second largest social networking site after Facebook, with over 15% of the social networking market

Creating online video need not be difficult, as most PC’s and laptops come bundled with video making software. Software such as Movie Maker or I-Movie is not complicated to use, and you can create a short video clip within the space of a few hours. You don’t even need a video camera as you can use screencast technology to capture images from your computer screen. For those of us bereft of video editing skills, I’ve discovered that a PowerPoint presentation set to music is an effective way of creating online video.

The point is: you don’t need to be a Spielberg to create online video, nor do you need to create an Oscar-winning blockbuster. All you need is a short video clip, of no more than 1 minute, to announce the publication of your new e-book.

Online video, if entertaining and informative, has the potential to go viral. For example, Pepsi Cola created a funny video clip that attracted over 26 million viewers over a very short time span. The clip lasted no more than a few minutes. Now that is what I call viral marketing at its best.

Creating an online video and uploading it to any one of the free video sharing sites will increase your e-book’s exposure to a broader audience.

Online video will also help you to create a brand image for your e-publishing business, a must if you want to become a bestselling e-book author. But, more importantly, online video will empower you towards a better rapport with your readers. Furthermore, the growing popularity of online video amongst Internet users translates into a better opportunity to build a more dynamic online presence for your e-book, which in turn equates to more sales.

Why not give your e-book the online video promotion treatment? The results might just surprise you.

Writer or Author: What is the difference?

I came across a blog about self-publishing today and found it very interesting and informative. The blog is called: A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing. I highly recommend visiting the blog if you are interested in e-publishing.

What made the blog such a riveting read was not such much the posts but the comments posted by visitors to the blog. I was particularly interested in the running debate between the blogger and an anonymous visitor over what constitutes a published author and what does not.

As a writer myself, not a novelist, I’ve always been intrigued by the traditionalists who insist on pursuing a pedantic view of authorship, and I thought I would share my opinions on the subject here.

The argument which was being put forward by the anonymous visitor was that you cannot be considered an author until you have had a book published in print and sold through a bookstore. If you are a writer of e-books only, then you cannot be considered a published author.

The reality is that the monopoly once exercised by traditional publishers has been broken by advances in publishing technology. Not since the days of William Caxton has the publishing world seen such a major revolution in how the written word is packaged and sold. We can either accept this revolutionary change, or we can deny it and go the way of the Luddite.

My personal feeling is that traditionalists are hanging onto some elitist notion that an author is someone who has had his or her work put into print and sold through a bookstore. Accordingly, a writer who falls outside this definition is not an author. This is something that I find hard to stomach since it smacks of pure snobbery, a defensive line followed by those who feel threatened by change.

We should not forget that before the Gutenberg Revolution, and the introduction of the movable type printing press, most of the known world was illiterate. The Gutenberg Revolution was the single most significant contributor to an improvement in literacy levels during the fifteenth century, which in turn led to substantial changes in the laws that had held men and women in medieval bondage for centuries. In effect, the Gutenberg Revolution was directly responsible for many of the freedoms which we now take for granted.

Before the onset of the Gutenberg Revolution, writers had to content themselves with handwritten manuscripts or woodblock press copies of their work. If we follow the line of reasoning advanced by the aforementioned anonymous visitor, then Homer (The Iliad), Virgil (Aeneid), Aurelius (Meditations) and countless others who wrote and published their handwritten work on vellum, papyrus, slate or stone are not authors but writers who have little to contribute to the world of literature. (Wow! I suppose that is one way of trashing a whole class of authorship. However, I wouldn’t recommend the anonymous visitor take his or her argument to an academic level. He or she might find themselves on the wrong end of a losing battle.)

Thanks to the Gutenberg Revolution mankind was able to enter a period of learning and enlightenment. Did the world benefit from this revolution? On the balance of historical evidence, I would have to say yes.

Perhaps we should also give thanks to this current revolution taking place in the publishing arena too, as it is pushing the envelope on how we communicate with each other. It is also forcing us towards a better understanding of the world in which we live.

Thanks to e-publishing, Joe and Jane Public have been given a platform through which they can express their thoughts, their opinions, and their ideas. In the same way that the Gutenberg Revolution broke the shackles of ignorance, e-publishing is breaking the notion that authorship is the reserve of an elitist few.

It matters little to me whether someone calls me an author or a writer. (I like the idea of being put in the same class as a Homer or a Virgil, if only!) The fact remains – I can write and publish my work on the Internet without validation or restriction from traditionalists who would keep the majority of us chained to the Dark Ages. Now that is what I call real freedom! The anonymous visitor can, therefore, retain the title of author. I’ll settle for the freedom to express myself as a writer through e-publishing.

The E-book Challenge: How to Engage Your Reader in 3 Seconds

Did you know that it takes less than 3 seconds for a reader to decide if your e-book is worth reading or not? Three seconds is about the length of time it has taken you to read the previous sentence. I think you will agree with me, 3 seconds is not a lot of time in which to engage your reader.

Your e-book may be full of riveting content, but if it doesn’t have a hook to engage your reader, then all your eloquent prose will be for nothing.

What is a hook? I hear you ask. A hook is something that attracts your reader’s attention and will compel them to delve further into your e-book to see what you have to offer. And remember, you only have 3 seconds for your hook to work.

Three seconds… tick, tick, tick. That is all the time you have to entice your reader into reading your e-book. If you are employing the same tired techniques from yesteryear to hook your readers, then the chances are you’ll hear click, click, click. Your readers will have flown never to return.

Whilst one should never judge a book by its cover, readers of your work will, however, make value judgments of your e-book offering based on title and imagery. A long complex title on a blank page will most certainly drive away your readers.

The key to engaging readers is to use a short title of fifty characters or less superimposed over an attractive image. The image must relate to the title and convey some sense of your e-book’s content.

It is a fact of life that imagery plays a vital role in how we perceive the world around us. Images, as they say, can convey a thousand words in the blink of an eye. And that is why a good front cover on your e-book is more likely to engage your reader than a blank page or a dull and unrelated image that bears no relationship to the title or content of your e-book.

Using symbolic imagery for your e-book cover is fine, but do not make it too complex. When creating your e-book cover, try to keep in mind that your readers will only give you 3 seconds in which to engage them. A complex image that doesn't strike a chord with your readers immediately will simply drive them away.

Some authors prefer to use expensive software to create attractive front covers for their e-books. E-book cover generators certainly add a touch of professionalism to your work. However, if your budget is limited, then you can use any number of open source e-book cover generators which are available on the Internet. Alternatively, you can also use existing software which is available on your computer.

For example, the e-book cover at the head of this article was created using Powerpoint and Paint, software that comes as standard with most PC’s. On this occasion I have used symbolic imagery to get my message across; the koala bear being a symbol of the bemusement experienced by most newbie authors as they struggle to understand the nuances of the e-book industry. The image is not 3D but it is attractive and endearing to those who want to know more about becoming a successful newbie e-book author.

A clear and succinct title accompanied by an attractive e-book cover is essential to your success as an e-book author. If you value the content of your e-book and want others to read it, then you might want to think about getting creative with your e-book covers.

Writing E-books: Using a Storyline to Sell Products

In order to sell or promote products successfully using a storytelling e-book, you need to take the key points of a given product or service and turn them into a story which your audience can buy into. Basically, the storyline should carry your product message to the reader without being overtly sales orientated.

Your storytelling e-book should be thematically focused and with a storyline which is either humorous or serious, or even both. The secret is to choose a theme and a storyline that you think your audience will enjoy reading. Themes can include relationship building, pets, children or gardening, to name but a few.

Once you have chosen your theme, simply add a storyline that can comfortably carry your product message without going over the top. If your readers find the storyline of your e-book interesting and entertaining, then there is a good chance that your reader will refer your e-book to their friends or relatives.

An e-book that tells a story to promote a product is not too dissimilar to a concept video or a concept advertisement you see on television. An excellent example of a concept advertisement is BT’s (British Telecom) use of a couple’s relationship to promote their broadband services. Each of BT's ensuing ads gave a snap shot of the relationship as it transcended from boy meets girl to the interaction of a mature adult couple. And, of course, this all takes place around BT’s broadband services. Following this same example, there is no reason why you, as an e-book author, cannot do the same. You can even write a series of stories built around a single thematic focus, much in the same way as the early radio soap operas used to.

What I like about using stories to endorse a given product is the fact that the storyline encourages the reader to imagine that they are using the product or service you wish to promote or sell. Reading stories invokes proxy participation much in the same way as watching a movie does. Your readers can engage with the product or service you are promoting by following your storyline.

So what products can be promoted and sold through the medium of storytelling? Pet related products are an obvious choice, as pet owners are often receptive to stories about animals. But even items such as software should not be excluded from the prose treatment. The Internet is awash with affiliate products, all of which can lend themselves to a storytelling medium. It really is all down to your imagination.

The inability to write stories need not exclude you from putting together a storytelling e-book to promote or sell your product. There are plenty of copywriters who would be willing to write your stories for you.

Alternatively, if you are artistically inclined, then you can always use the cartoon and caption option. Popeye and his spinach eating adventures spring to mind here. I have often wondered how much spinach was sold as a direct result of the Popeye cartoon strips. I am sure Popeye played a major role in promoting sales of this versatile vegetable.

So if you are already an affiliate marketer, or you are planning to become one, then you might want to write an e-book with a storyline that promotes your product rather than just pumping your customers with hardcore sales copy.

Writing E-books: Identifying and Answering Your Audience’s Needs

Writing E-books and selling them is very much about identifying your target audience’s needs and then answering them. To achieve this you will need to ask a number of questions. This process is called an ‘Audience Needs Analysis’.

An ‘Audience Needs Analysis’ helps you to identify specifically what it is your audience wants to know. The speed of life today means that your audience simply does not have the time to read superfluous text that has no bearing on their needs or wants. So an ‘Audience Needs Analysis’ will help you to keep your audience’s needs in focus while you are writing.

You can begin your ‘Audience Needs Analysis’ by putting yourself into your audience’s shoes. This will give you a new perspective on the topic on which you are planning to write. Ask yourself the following questions:

1. Who is my audience – what is their age group, are they fellow professionals or hobbyists?

2. What does my audience know about the topic I am planning to write about?

3. What does my audience need or want to know about the topic?

4. What questions will my audience want answered?

5. After reading the e-book, what is the best possible outcome for my audience?

6. What is the best possible outcome for me as the author of the e-book?

Once you have answered the above questions you will be able to formulate a set of aims, objectives and possible outcomes. Some readers might be under the impression that an aim and an objective are one in the same. They are not.

An aim is what you intend to do, whereas an objective is the purpose behind what you intend to do. For example:

Aim: The aim of this article is to help readers to identify and answer their audience’s needs.

Objective: After reading this article, the reader will be able to identify their audience’s needs, and, as a result, will be able to produce better quality e-books that will meet the demands of their audience.

Possible outcomes: A better informed readership who will continue to read my posts or articles, and, perhaps, even make referrals.

Of course, you can have more than one aim, objective or possible outcome. But you should note: The more aims, objectives and possible outcomes you have, the more complex your writing project becomes. Remember, the idea is to keep your audience’s needs in focus, not drown them in a complex set of overarching goals.

Having established your aims, objectives, and possible outcomes, you should start thinking about a writing frame that will help you to synthesize what you have learnt about your audience. An anagram that I have found useful for answering an audience’s needs is BOMBER B. Note: You can use BOMBER B for presentations and as well as writing projects.

B – Bang! Get your audience’s attention by telling them something interesting or by asking a question related to their needs

O – Opening: Outline the basic structure of your e-book and tell your audience how they will benefit from reading it

M – Message: List four or five points that your e-book will cover – no more than five as too much information will overwhelm your reader.

B - Bridge: Connect the points to your audience’s needs - show/demonstrate how your audience will benefit from understanding these points

E – Examples: Give examples or state facts in relation to the points your e-book is making

R – Recap: Summarize the information you have imparted in your e-book

B – Bang! Finish with impact by linking back to your opening statement or question – tell your audience how your e-book has clarified the statement or answered the question.

BOMBER B is a simple but effective tool for synthesizing and packaging what you have learnt from your ‘Audience Needs Analysis’. Both the ‘Audience Needs Analysis’ and BOMBER B will keep your writing tight and focused. Why not give them a try when you write your next E-book?