Your book is done. You have edited the manuscript and the prose practically jumps off every page. It is time to publish on prominent sites such as Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Goodreads, Smashwords, and Kobe, and watch the royalties fill your coffers. Right? Wrong! Book marketing can be a daunting exercise if you are an indie author without an offline following beyond your friends and family. Five-star reviews from a few loyal fans help, but cannot guarantee consistent sales. So, the DIY author often has to rely on paid publicists/coaches/advertisements to increase the chances of generating scalable word of mouth. Anyone who has tried to squeeze a book into the crowded carousel of ads scrolling on an Amazon page knows what a daunting exercise this can be for a first-timer.
Enter video marketing. Compelling video ads of 60-second ads judiciously placed on a page may boost social media engagement and enhance chances of conversion into sales. This statement is based on the concept of how people browse and search for information on the web, also known as snacking. According to an Adelie Studio’s post, “buyers who are in research mode like summarized or ‘snackable’ content. These are typically 30 to 60 seconds at the most.” Think about it this way. A third of online activity is spent on watching videos, 75% of users visit a marketer’s website after viewing a video, and website visitors are 64% more likely to buy a product on a retail site after watching a video. Videos also affect your search engine ranking. Dreamgrow cites an amazing statistic that you are 53 times more likely to show up first on Google if you have a video embedded in your site.
No wonder there has been an explosion of how-to and other product explainer videos online. However, with every claim one must consider the caveats. Does the video appear as part of a banner ad or is it seamlessly integrated with the rest of the author’s site? If you have written a how-to book and want the reader to have a linear experience, it will probably help to develop one or two short explainer videos, followed by a call to action. Because such creative assets are often large and may contribute to the loading time of a page, benefits must be balanced against risks. Ad blockers can of course impact both text-based and visual ads.
Nevertheless, videos will likely make casual browsers linger for a longer time on your author site and can be valuable for organic referrals/pay-per-click advertising. Sites such as moovly.com and Adobe Spark make it very easy to generate a video summary of your book. I spent less than 10 minutes generating this explainer video for my book, Butterflies, on Adobe Spark.
So, add this tool to your marketing repertoire and let me know (fill out the form below) if this has worked for you. Have fun, fellow indie authors.