I just watched the Pixar animation, Ratatouille, a story about a rat who becomes a chef in a Paris restaurant called Gusteaus. In the movie, Anton Gusteau, founder of Gusteaus, publishes a book titled, “Anyone Can Cook.” This same idea holds true for authors wanting to promote their books with videos. Any author can make a video to promote his or her book and then distribute that video over the Internet.

I am not an expert on this subject, which makes me the perfect person to be writing about making videos and putting them on the Internet. Here’s how I became a video producer:

I went to Best Buy and purchased a Sony Digital Handycam DCR-SR42. I bought this model because it was smaller than my hand and uses no tape or disk. Once I make a video, I download the file directly to my computer. It cost around $500.

And then I started making videos. I didn’t have a book at the time, but I was building our new website, www.authorsonthenet.com so the first video I made was of me standing in front of a white board explaining why we started Authors On The Net. I didn’t have any video editing software at the time (in fact, I still don’t) so I had to make the video several times until I got it right. Once I was satisfied, I plugged in the USB cord from my camera to my computer and minutes later my video was now on my laptop ready to be uploaded to the Internet.

And that’s when I ran into a snag. I had planned to put my new video on YouTube (www.youtube.com) so the world could access my introduction and also so I could create a link to the video. Rather than storing the video on my own server, I planned to use YouTube’s servers. The reason for using YouTube’s service is that visitors to my site do not need to download my video, they can simply click the play button and start watching. Instant gratification is important when using videos.

I went to www.youtube.com and created a free account. I then clicked on the video upload, but that is when I hit the snag. YouTube only allows videos of 100MB or less and my video was over 100MB. (You can see how big your video is by putting your cursor over the image of your video and right-clicking. When you do this, a window opens up and at the bottom of this window is “properties.” If you click on properties, you will see the number of Megabytes your video uses.) Now, an expert could edit my video and compress it or teach me how to record in lower resolution. My video was only 5 minutes long. I’ve seen videos on YouTube that are over 15 minutes long. So with a little expert advice and help, I’m sure I could have figured out how to upload my first video on YouTube. But I was impatient and Shahar and Nash were getting tired of me calling every 5 minutes with technical questions. Plus, it was close to midnight when I was trying to upload my first video.

That’s when I discovered Google video. So I went to www.google.com and clicked on videos (you can find this link in the upper left-hand corner.) Unlike YouTube, Google lets you upload files larger than 100MB and as far as I know, you can upload any size video. To upload videos larger than 100MB you will need to download and install the Google Video upload tool, which is easy and fast to do. (FYI: Google recently purchased YouTube.)
I uploaded my first video and filled out the information. I decided to make this video open to the public but for videos just for members of Authors On The Net , I make the videos unlisted, which is a nice feature. Again, while I could put all these videos on my own server and ask members to download them, I like using Google Videos and YouTube (I still prefer YouTube for videos under 100MB – better brand name, more viewers) because visitors can view the videos immediately.

Now that I could not only make videos, but also upload them on either YouTube or Google Video, I was ready to become a video producer. I put the video camera in my computer bag and started carrying it with me everywhere. One day I was out at the book bindery and thought it would be a good idea to show our associates on AON the actual process of making a perfect bound book. Then I made a video of the bindery making a hardbound book. And then I shot a video of our digital machines printing books. Once I got going, there was no stopping me. I’d become digitally equipped with video and it was just so easy.

Now, how does being digitally equipped with video help an author promote his or her book? Here are two ideas we are doing with two real authors.

Case Study One: Dr. Steven Proskauer has a book about Karmic Therapy and he uses his book as a marketing piece to get people to his seminars. After he started his blog, he wanted to put videos on YouTube and then link those videos on his blog. He didn’t have a camera so I loaned him mine. He and Brenda sat down one afternoon and shot over 15 videos. Each of these videos will link back to his blog so if someone happens to find him while searching for videos on Youtube, they will be led to his book and to a teaching seminar.

I doubt this author’s videos will become a number one viewed video on YouTube. I doubt my teenage daughters will watch his videos. That’s okay because we really don’t want my daughters watching these videos nor do we care about being the most-watched video on YouTube. What we do care about is finding people interested in Karmic healing. Internet marketing is about reaching out to your niche market.

Case Study Two: Dr. William Guillory and I wrote a book titled, “How To Become a Total Failure: 10 Rules of Highly Unsuccessful People.” Danny Guillory, president of Innovations International, came up with the idea of holding a video contest on YouTube. We are offering $1,000 for the best video submitted to us. The videos will be based on one of the rules.

This idea works for this book because the book is full of tongue-in-cheek humor. We also think the generation Y users on YouTube will find the challenge interesting and the $1,000 useful. Unlike Dr. Proskauer’s strategy above, we do want these videos to be highly watched on YouTube as our book has mass-appeal. We would love it if our teenage daughters watched these videos and told their friends about them.

These two case studies point out one very important concept about using videos to promote your book: how you use video to promote your book largely depends on what type of book you have and what kind of audience you are going after. Making a funny video just to boost viewers may not help you sell books. Having a video that appeals to your target audience is more important.

The last video tool I want to discuss are book trailers. I’ve saved this tool for last because to make a good book trailer does require some expertise. Some authors will be able to make their own book trailers using flash media or some other kind of software. However, many authors will want to hire an expert to make their book trailers. Book trailers are distributed on YouTube, Google Video and other places you can submit videos to.

Book trailers are like movie trailers and can cost as little as $500 or as much as $50,000 depending on your budget and the type of trailer you want. If you go to www.youtube.com and search for book trailers, you will find thousands of trailers you can watch. When you click on a book trailer to watch, you will see the number of times the video has been viewed. For example, the Witch Fire trailer I just watched has been viewed 5,788 times. That’s 5,788 people who now know this book, Witch Fire, exists.

In conclusion, before authors can sell their books, they need to promote their books to let people know their book exists. Most buyers will not decide to buy until they have heard about a product 3 to 5 times. The same is true for books. The more ways you can put the word out about your book, the better your chances are of attracting a book buyer. The magic of the Internet is, just like Gusteau says in Ratatouille, anyone can do it. Literally anyone. Even someone like me.
Note: Google Video and YouTube are not the only places to submit your videos. A good resource to use to submit your videos to more places is: Video submitter www.myvideosubmitter.com