Writers' Videos & Trailers

You know how hot video is right now on the Web and on mobile devices. I don't think visual communications are soon going away. Anything that engages multiple senses makes more of an impact and a more lasting one. Author clips, intriguing plot snippets, or other teasers about your writing leave readers wanting more.

A wealth of strong statistics from major Internet research firms backs up the growth of online video viewing and the switch from TV to the Web. Publishers have been jumping on this bandwagon for some time, just as they are issuing books in digital formats. And The Christian Science Monitor suggests several viable reasons for writers to substitute well-made videos for traditional tours, including author personality problems, shrinking budgets, and increasing travel difficulties.

Don't use your vids only as brochures. They need to become word-of-mouth generators, called viral videos. Just embedding them in your web page is not enough: make them easily portable to others' sites, to add to emails and available in all types of connective devices. One method to accomplish this is to upload your video to You Tube, then place it on your own website with the service-generated code for visitors to copy.

At One True Media you can try out creating your video trailer for free. I can't wait to ... uh, perhaps I'd better write a book first? No! My avatar! Maybe I can get something into her empty hands this way, something like a book. That would be a book video, no? O.K. Just a manuscript to edit, or the keyboard to use in ghostwriting.

Read the whole article for lists of ideas for how to use a video in promotional and marketing campaigns and to boost awareness and increase your social network standings.