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.

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.

Writing for Cash – The Myth and the Reality

If you are reading this article, then you are clearly interested in writing for money, or least given some thought to the idea. You have also no doubt researched the idea of writing for cash on the Internet and downloaded a handful of e-books or reports telling you how to turn your writing into a source of income.

Many of the e-books or reports you have read probably waxed lyrical about the hundreds of thousands of dollars that newbie and established writers are making from publishing their work on the Internet. Moreover, amongst all the hyperbole you will have come across testimonies testifying to the magic of a particular writing system. Some of these testimonies may contain an element of truth. However, what these testimonies fail to tell you is the fact that a majority of wannabe writers will not make a penny from their writing, no matter how great the writing system might be. This is understandable since the promoter of the writing system wants you to buy the product. So let us dispel the myth right now: not everyone can or will earn money from their writing.

There are several reasons why many wannabe writers never cut the mustard when it comes to turning their writing into cash. The most obvious reason is the lack of effort on the part of the wannabe writer to write effectively.

I recently came across several e-products where the author was trying to promote him or herself as a marketing or writing guru. Each of the texts that I read had potential but sadly most of them were littered with grammar and spelling mistakes. And whilst no one is perfect when it comes to the written word, I expected something a little better from those who were promoting themselves as leaders in their field.

Although not everyone can be a Hemmingway or a Stephen King, the least an author can do when they are trying to sell their writing for cash is to run a grammar and spell check over their work. Better still, they should learn a little about the art of writing before going to press.

If you are serious about making money from your writing, then be prepared to invest time, effort and energy to improve your skills as an author. It takes practise and a willingness to learn in order to become a proficient writer. The writing process merits respect from all those who are planning to make money from publishing their work.

The key to becoming a profitable writer rests in your ability to entertain and to captivate the reader through eloquent prose. If the reader is distracted because of too many spelling or grammatical errors in your work, then the reader will almost certainly go elsewhere for their reading material.

Once you have lost your reader because of bad spelling or grammar, then it is unlikely that he or she will come back to read the other material you have on offer. In short, to become a profitable writer you must approach the task of writing as you would any other profession – with due care and attention to detail.

Writing, like other professions, requires an understanding of your tools. Furthermore, you need to be proficient at using these tools if you want to become a successful author. You need to know how the written word works in terms of communicating ideas, excitement, tension and passion. Without this knowledge and the skill to use it you will fail to gain an audience for your written material.

At an elementary level, if you want to earn money from your writing, then you need to know how a sentence is constructed. You will also need to know how to use verb tenses to convey the appropriate sense of time and place. Once you have mastered the art of sentence structure, then you will need to learn how to stitch paragraphs together so that your writing comes across as a clear and coherent message.

There are plenty of resources on the Internet and in local libraries to help the budding writer master the art of writing. The local writing club or circle is a good place for writers to begin their career, not to mention a great place to exchange ideas with more experienced writers.

Writing clubs or circles present the wannabe writer with an opportunity to test their work and to gain feedback on what they have written. Constructive criticism from those in the know is always useful to anyone who is serious about improving their writing skills.

Learning to write is a lifelong process and one that should be encouraged. While there is money to be made from writing, not everyone can hope to make the grade as a profitable writer. However, this should not prevent you from trying, so long as you are willing to put in the effort.

Writing is an enjoyable pass time even if you do not make money from what you have written. You do not need to be a bestselling author to benefit from your prose. Writing is a skill that can enhance the quality of your life both at work and at play. So whilst you might be considering a career as a profitable writer, try to think of the other benefits that come with improving and developing your writing skills.

Why People Fail to Make Money from E-books

There are many reasons why people fail at writing and publishing e-books. But most of those reasons are related to the individual’s disposition rather than any problems associated with the e-book publishing industry.

First, most individuals entering the e-book publishing industry do so without fully understanding what it is they want to achieve.

Second, developing an e-book publishing business takes time and energy. Impatience is probably the biggest contributing factor towards people giving up on e-book writing and publishing as a possible source of income.

If you decide to become an e-book author/publisher, then be prepared for a lot of hard work over a long period of time. Even though there are no guarantees that your efforts will be successful, determination and hard work will swing the odds in your favor.

Third, becoming an e-book author/publisher is about learning the tools of the trade
The world of e-book publishing is very different to the one most of us encounter at the shopping mall where glitzy packaging entices us to buy the book. The Internet does not have that touchy feely experience about it most of us have become accustomed to when we go shopping. On the contrary, e-book publishing requires you to get your message across in a sincere and direct way that convinces prospective customers to purchase your e-book offering.

Learning about what works or does not work in the world of e-book publishing is imperative to your success as an e-book author/publisher. And the best way to learn about what works or does not work is to use the tried and tested methods employed by the more successful and experienced members of the e-book industry. Taking note of what the professionals do will give you a solid base of knowledge from which you can develop your own ideas.

Fourth, choosing the right e-book niche is vitally important if you are to succeed as an e-book author/publisher. You do not want to enter a market already saturated by competitors. You are a newbie and will soon become overwhelmed by the size of the competition. Survey the e-book landscape before you take the plunge. Choose something that matches your talent and your demeanor. Market research will prevent you from making the wrong, and perhaps costly, decisions.