Guest Expert: Sandie Lee
Congratulations! You’ve written and published a book, that alone is an accomplishment! However, getting your book into the hands of your potential audience may not be that easy. Sure the invention of ebooks, Kindles and online book stores increase your chances, but how will the reader find your book among the thousands of others they have to choose from?
Facebook, Twitter, blogs and YouTube are all wonderful avenues to help promo your (hope-to-be) best seller, but unless you use these wisely, you may not be allowing it to reach its full market potential.
Media and advertising is coming at us from all directions – more proof that we live in a visual society. But what do we really pay attention to? Personally (as with most people) I would rather watch a 30-60 second clip of a product then read paragraphs of type print. After all “a picture is worth a thousand words,” so why not let your creative montage speak for itself?
Like a trailer for a movie or television program, sneak peeks of your book work the same way – visuals, catchy music, exciting phrases and link backs – all entice the viewer to want to grab a copy of your hard work. In addition, these videos not only “pump up” your book they can be embedded into blogs, newsletters, YouTube, Facebook, web sites, and emails. This gives you the marketing potential of reaching thousands, if not, millions of people. I’m sure we’ve all seen a popular YouTube video that’s gone viral! THINK HUGE!
There are several programs available to help you create a montage of your own and range in price, user-friendliness and creative extensiveness. Once you have a program you’re comfortable with it’s all up to your creativity, but remember to REALLY sell your book.
When I produce a trailer I always keep in mind the three C’s – Catchy. Creative. Commercial. We may hate when an advertiser interrupts our tv viewing, but some of commercials are hard to forget and play over and over in our heads – catchy, creative, commercial. It works!
If you’re not comfortable or simply don’t have the time to invest into making your own sneak peek then check out a company that can do it for you (I highly recommend TattleTott Productions).
There’s a lot of things vying for the consumer’s attention and money why not make your book one of the “must-haves” on the list? After all, what’s the use of having a book published if no one knows? Catchy, creative, commercial, sneak peek trailers may be just the marketing edge you’ve been looking for..
Sandie created a sneak peak trailer for BookBuzzr as an example. Have a trailer for your book? Did you create it yourself? Have tips for authors creating video trailers?
Sandie lee is a freelance writer and owner of TattleTott Productions. She is currently working for Imagination-Cafe as an assistant editor and blog editor. She has been published both in print and online and all her video productions can be viewed on YouTube at Tattle Tott.
