Social Media in Review - Break.com

Break (www.break.com) is a great site for comedy, sexy stuff, and anything you think guys would love. That’s right, Break is more of a guy site. According to Break.com’s own website they reach more men ages 18 to 34 than any other online video site.

So, not all book videos do well there, and of course there are women who go to the site, so we send all videos there. But, we do see an obvious increase in certain videos that tells us Break’s claim on the male market appears to be true.

We’ve had some problems with Break in the past. They’ve rejected some videos as too commercial and threatened to close our profile. But, we emailed them to plead our case that book trailers are video entertainment in their own right. Since then we’ve not had any problems uploading to Break, which we do via TubeMogul.

Going Beyond Making Book Video

It’s hard to sell something creative when most creative is subjective. We did an online survey of our videos. We chose one video from each of our editors and created a survey at www.surveymonkey.com. If you ever want to do a survey of your readers or clients this is a very valuable service. We use surveys as one part of our quality improvement and assessment commitment.

It was interesting to see that so many people participated and there was such variety in their opinions. Something we discovered that was interesting was that many of our participants, which were made up of readers and booksellers, were most influenced by the genre of the video. Overall, each of the videos did well, but there were opinions that conflicted over music and visual elements. The video that had the worst marks was also the video that 80% of the participants voted the as the best video. It was almost as though they were harder on the video they thought was the best.

It made me wonder how this could happen. It all came down to the preference of the viewer. Not just the quality of the video, but genre of the video was most important overall. So, one can conclude that, if someone doesn’t like a video, it may have nothing at all to do with how the video looks or what the message is.

In 2003 when Borders Group put the first book trailer, Dark Symphony, up on their site, no one really knew how book trailers would eventually turn into a market of their own. Now that they seem almost commonplace; people see them less as a cool novelty and more as an expected entertainment or advertisement. With the newness wearing off people are becoming more critical and demanding of quality and clarity. Slideshows slapped together with text taking up the entire screen is not going to be acceptable anymore. More and more people are turning to professionally made content. Not only are authors and publishers turning to professionally made content, but so are distributors of online content.
The book trailer market has been established. With growing online demand for entertainment and news the book video market has solidified its place in most marketing campaigns. There was a shift in 2008 from just having a book video to maximizing the effectiveness of book video. Distribution and analytics are the name of the game now. If you aren’t a major player in those categories you aren’t looking toward the future of the market.

Distribution doesn’t just mean uploading to YouTube, MySpace and the like. That’s now expected. Back in early 2006 we were impressing people with our 10 distribution sites that went with each product. In 2010 we have well over 400 distribution sites and have branched out into genre-specific placement of video. You must realize that if everyone is uploading to the top 10 or 20 video share sites, then your video is now in competition with thousands of others. It’s not just competing with other book video, but with other online video entertainment. Either you need to grow your own YouTube-type sites somehow, or you need to start partnering with specialty sites that will take your video as content. You need to investigate online content provider companies that will send your content out to entertainment sites like SciFi Channel or Oxygen Network.

Analytics are key as well. What are analytics? Analytics is an analysis of how something did, in this case, online. Information like, who is watching the video, where they are from, how long did they watch the video, did they share it? Demographic and geographic information can be important for many reasons.

• Knowing if your book is read more by men or women can help you determine how to develop the look of your website
• Knowing that your video is very popular in a particular state or city can help you determine where to do a book signing or what booksellers you need to become more friendly with
• Knowing what state or city your video is popular in can help determine where you should do media buys

There are more reasons why this information is important and a variety of ways to utilize the information for future campaigns.

Targeting your audience, localizing your target and being able to pinpoint your best chances for sales in a given area is going to make your marketing budget dollar work harder for you. After all, a book video isn’t designed to get hits on YouTube, it is designed to sell books. When you can do both, then you have an effective marketing tool worth investing in.

Setting Goals and Measurements for Video

What does it mean to “go viral”?

It means that your video is being passed around beyond where you initially put it. It means that someone other than you, or the person who uploaded it for you, has picked it up and done something with it.

What are they doing with my video?!!

Primarily they are linking to it or embedding it into their own site or blog. Many blogs are creating material around book video and are enticing readers to their site with the video and then offering other things once you get there. Some are reader’s blogs, fan blogs and industry blogs. But there are people who are downloading it to their computer or their iPod/iPad so they can watch it again and again. Some are commenting on your video or rating it. Whether it is being passed around through email or via mobile phone once it is sent out by someone else it has gone viral.

How Do I Measure The Success Of My Video?

To answer the question I must ask one: What was the goal of the video? If you don’t know then you’ll never know how successful it was.

If your goal was to get as many views as possible you can just count views. You can use tags that are sexy, inflammatory, disturbing or popular. Create a description designed to bring people to the video.

If your goal is to generate sales how will you measure your videos ability to do that? Do you have a “buy” button next to the video on your site? Are you an associate of a bookseller that allows you to monitor the sales from those buy buttons? Are you at least getting the video to high reader-trafficked sites? You need to identify how you will measure this. Can you compare your sales from this book to the sales of your last book? That’s a tough one because the marketing department may be doing something new as well and then you’re not sure what upped those sales. Identify how you will measure this if this is the reason you’re using a book video.

If your goal is to create awareness of your book and/or name (brand) how will you measure the effectiveness of the video to help do that. This is a little easier to do. The number of views, comments, ranking and sharing of the video tell you that someone paid attention to the video. Engaging with the video is actually more important than simple views. No matter what, if someone watched your video they DID something in order to see it. It isn’t like television where you are able to interrupt something to show your advertisement. Someone WANTED to see your book video. But, when they go far enough to DO something to it for with it they are engaged and more likely to remember your name or the name of the book.
If your goal is show established readers that you have a new series this is a wonderful vehicle to do that with. It is easy to let them SEE what the new series is about. It is important, then, to not only be on social networks where you hope to find new readers, but to get on book-specific sites such as bookseller sites, book review sites and reader sites. Don’t waste your time putting your video on author sites. Yes, authors read. But, usually authors on author sites are interested in their own work. You need to get your video on reader sites. You can determine the success of your video by the number of reader-sites that take it and display it for you.

If your goal is to establish that you’re writing an entirely NEW genre then it is important to get on social sites in which that genre is popular and to get on reader sites to let people know about the change. If you are writing under a pen name then treat this video as though you are a new author. Get your name out to as many sites as possible, both social media sites and reader-specific sites. Blogs that allow video embedding are a great way to push that new genre as well. I see a lot of author missing this opportunity. Embed the video and talk a little bit about it. To determine if your video has been successful according to your established goals, take a look at the number of sites you got it onto. Review the number of hits and be sure to give extra credit points for reader-sites and bookseller sites.

The bottom line is to have a goal, make a plan and follow up to see the plan helped to achieve the goal.

Book Video and Copyright Infringement

Book videos are being pulled and artists are yelling “copyright infringement” and rightly so. Whether you’re making a book video yourself or you’ve hired someone to make it for you if you use a picture, footage or music incorrectly or without permission you can be setting yourself and your publishing house up for a law suit. http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/409631-_Yiddish_Success_Sparks_Infringement_Lawsuit.php

As technology presents an easy way to do your own editing it seems easier to spend your time than your money by creating a video yourself. More and more small business video producers or “book marketers” are adding book video production to their list of services because it’s easy and it’s lucrative.

There’s nothing wrong with creating your own video. You just need to know how to make it, where to put it and a little something about the law. If you can do something yourself and save money it seems like the wise thing to do. But, like any industry there are reasons why professionals make good money at what they do. They know things you don’t. Take the time to learn those things, or be willing to suffer the consequences.

The first time I ever heard of a lawsuit regarding a book video was with VidLit’s "Yiddish With Dick and Jane". The publisher was accused of violating copyright for the old Fun With Dick and Jane series we all got to read as kids. The video received hundreds of thousands of views and was also named in the lawsuit. The producer wasn’t the one who originally caused the copyright problem, but the use of the material brought them into the fray.

I’ve seen authors use popular music in their book videos, or pictures of celebrities.

http://community.livejournal.com/steamfashion/2352175.html?page=2#comments


Not all licenses are created equal. So be sure you read the fine print when you take something that says “royalty free” for your book video. Sometimes there are caveats to being able to use a photo, footage or music.

Lori Foster Event- Handout on Social Media by Sheila Clover English of COS

In this discussion we will review where to be and what to do to market yourself.

Where To Be
There are literally hundreds of sites you can be on.

Choose the best 3 to spend the majority of your online social time with

Identify your audience

Where are THEY going online?

Go there.
Make your top 3 someplace you LOVE to be, since you’ll be there a lot.

My “best 3” are- Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn with MySpace as a close tie with LinkedIn. Book specific site of choice is GoodReads, but I don’t go there consistently, so it’s not in my top 3.

Once you choose your top 3, give it 6 months and if you don’t see a return on your investment (time) try an alternate site.


What To Do
Be present there. Let people get to know you. People invest their time and attention in you and they feel more connected to you and to what you do.

Time management. Budget your time. Don’t let your social networking interfere with your book writing time. Or your family time.

Follow the four basic rules of social engagement:

Be on topic- Don’t interject your book marketing into a conversation NOT related to that. If you do that is called SPAM!!!!


Be consistent- Be present. Be present on a routine basis. NOT just when you have a book coming out.


Keep it real- Talk about things that you really have a passion for. Be honest in all that you do.


80/20 Rule- 80 percent of the time you are talking about things NOT related to marketing your book. Be sure to interact with others during this time too. Relationships require more than one person, so interact and care about others! 20 percent of the time you can find creative or direct ways to talk about your book. Don’t just make it an ad pitch, talk about the writing of the book, the research of the book, the storyline, the characters. 20% is actually a LOT. I would not hard sell a book in a social environment unless you have cultivated a community receptive to that.


Social Network Opportunities- Ads, games, groups, book clubs, blogging, networking, speaking engagements…

Yahoo- COS Social Media in Review

Yahoo is not just a search engine, it has a great deal of other opportunities with groups, Flickr, Yahoo video-It’s On, and Yahoo Buzz. Though the average number of views isn’t as high as our YouTube channel, it is a strong search engine and we do get hits for every video.

Yahoo allows for easy bookmarking which we take full advantage of. We’ve been using Yahoo video since it began. We upload to Yahoo via TubeMogul, but we check on our Yahoo profile to see how the view numbers and engagement are and to keep the profile fresh and updated.

The Importance of Newsletters

For the second year in a row COS Productions has won an Outstanding Achievement Award in Email Marketing. Primarily, we are consistent with our mailings, we have a consistent message, content our subscribers enjoy and we  play by the rules of etiquette.

We always offer an easy opt-out option to our newsletters and we never add people without permission. We actually have two newsletters, which most people don’t realize. We have our normal newsletter that has book reviews, book trailers, interviews, industry news and other fun stuff and then we have a private email newsletter that only goes out to our established clients and that tells them what we’re doing that is new and may affect them. These people get a lot of free stuff or discounts from us and we share with them any new trend news.

Newsletters need to offer something of value, not just be a sales tool. That is part of the reason our newsletter stands out. If we have readers subscribe to our main newsletter and they are happy to hear about authors, books and related news they will share that with their friends and respond to that news. So our main newsletter is really for readers first. Then we have something for authors or aspiring authors second. You seldom see anything sales-like in that newsletter. But, we do refer to our other programs and sites where we entertain readers on a larger scale. So, in that way we are promoting our other sites. But, we are not selling anything.

Why not sell? Well, it’s like living by example. You want people to WANT what you
have. You don’t want to have to convince them, trick them or otherwise maneuver them into buying something from you. If you are passionate about what you do and you believe in what you’re selling, people will see that. You want to encourage them to be as excited as you are. That’s fun!

Our Established Client Newsletter is designed to be primarily a resource. We talk
about what we’re doing, what we plan on doing, what we’re doing for free and what trends we are following and why. We talk about the success of our clients. And, we remind people of our other sites and the opportunities there. At some point we will offer special deals or discounts, but the primary function of the newsletter is to be a resource.

Newsletters need to have news in them. They need to have articles. They need to have value to them. If they are just another sales pitch, the will get pitched to the round file that is SPAM. But, offer some tips & tricks, some valuable articles and education/opinion on relevant topics and your newsletter will flourish!

Viddler- COS Social Media in Review Series

We started using Viddler in 2008 and I like the site a lot despite the fact that we only get a couple hundred views per video as a rule.

There are a lot of social opportunities with groups and friending, blogging as well as an API, RSS and the ability to send out to iTunes if you choose.

The site has been stable and I see it continuing to grow and offer new things on a regular basis. They seem to have a handle on how to monetize which is important for it to stay operational. They are in beta with HTML5 which makes me VERY happy since we get a LOT of views via mobile phones.
Surprisingly, the videos that have done best have been historical romance, chicklit and paranormal romance.

Social Media for the Thriller Genre

Sheila Clover English, Barbara Vey, & Dianna Love.

Before you start your social media adventure you need to know four things. These things need to be written down so you can examine them as you create your campaign or plan.




Know your audience-  
Identify a typical reader of your book and do a mock profile of them so you don’t lose sight of who you are trying to reach.


Remember that your audience, as it pertains to social media, doesn’t just want your book, they want an experience with you.

People are about their OWN stories!!!!

Know your goals- 
Have set goals. Goals for how you will budget your time online. Goals for what you want to get out of being on social sites. Goals for your book, series or career. But have them, know them and work toward them daily.


If you don’t have goals going in, you can easily get swept away by the time suck that often occurs with social media.


If you don’t know how much time to spend there I recommend buying an egg timer, setting it for 20 minutes and timing yourself. You might budget more than that, or less, but be consistent and don’t get sucked in.




Know yourself- 
Know your strengths and weaknesses. Match them up to the social sites to make sure you choose the right one for you.


If you are terrible about blogging, don’t blog. Twitter. Do something you feel you can be good at. And if you can, find something you actually enjoy doing.


Be passionate about things. People love to see others who are passionate about what they do. Be 
positive. Snark can come back on you in a bad way if you’re not careful.




Know your resources- 
Who is your go-to person for technology? Website stuff? Social media? Make friends. Exchange resources with people.


Know professionals who can help you, booksellers, librarians and communities. And that is where we’re going to segue into the actual topic of the session.

There are many blogs and sites that are specific for the thriller genre. Some of those are professional sites that charge a fee for services and some are free. Both have something to offer the thriller writer looking to promote their book.


Start with asking yourself what it is you want to promote? Is it your book, series or brand? What is your goal? Are you looking to cross promote to a sub-genre like romance or paranormal? 

Set your goals and match them to your opportunities. 

If you’re looking for sites that will get your book in front of thriller readers and other potential buyers such as booksellers or libraries you may need to look for a professional service. So we’ll look at those first and then move on to the free sites.


There are three businesses that I’m going to cover in this session. They are not the only game in town, but they are businesses I trust. Anytime you plan on hiring someone to do your marketing for you I strongly urge you to check their references and reputation.




BookReporter.com
Carol Fitzgerald owns the Book Reporter and this businesses has the respect of the industry. It has been around for years and the great thing about it is that it has genre-specific opportunities.
What I love about this site is it promotes itself to readers. It gives readers a reason to trust them and a reason to return. That means a lot of eyes on your promotion.




AuthorBuzz
M.J. Rose. If you don’t know her, you need to at least know of her. She is an amazing promoter and has put together one of the best promotions for books and authors there is online. You can have your book seen by librarians, book clubs and readers. You can do blog ads. This is a site I recommend you check out.




Circle of Seven Productions
If you’re going to do multimedia and social media check out www.cosproductions.com. This is the company that started the book trailer phenomenon and whether you like book trailers or not, the videos are seen by hundreds of booksellers and thousands of librarians as well as on social media sites, reader sites and genre-specific sites.






They have social media marketing package that includes book review, both traditional and video, blogging, press release, podcasts and distribution of the video and podcast to a wide variety of appropriate sites. 


Barbara recommended Dan Blank of www.wegrowmedia.com as someone who does reliable marketing that has experience. She has worked with him personally.


Again, there are other professional services out there. You may want to check the Predators and Editors website to see if they have been reported with either good or bad reviews.


Now, for some free sites-

1. ITW Facebook
2. ITW MySpace
3. TracyReaderDad Blog - Blip player
4. InfernalDreams.net
5. Reader’s Entertainment Thriller site
6. ITW Twitter  (social oomph)
7. Thriller/Mystery/Suspense Group - http://groups.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=groups.groupprofile&groupID=103678455
8. Whodunit Mystery/Suspense Group - http://groups.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=groups.groupprofile&groupID=100437006
9. Mysteries and Thrillers MySpace Group - http://groups.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=groups.groupprofile&groupID=103678455
10. Facebook ITW Debut authors site (NEW, first time authors only) - http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=31198744908&ref=search
11. Facebook group- "We love reading thriller & science fiction" - http://www.facebook.com/search/?init=srp&sfxp&q=suspense+books&o=69&c1=5&s=40#!/group.php?gid=140489859244
12. http://suspenseandcrime.gather.com/
13. PW Beyond Her Book

Be a guest blogger! Talk about something useful or unique and don’t forget to promote your book and website!

• Know your audience
• Know your goals
• Know yourself
• Know your resources  

COS in NYC at ThrillerFest!

ThrillerFest is underway and COS is there! Thursday CEO Sheila English, who is also the ITW Social Media Chair, met with clients, talked to thriller writers, did interviews and attended some great sessions.

New York Times bestselling author Lisa Scottoline did a great session on the mechanics of writing, pitching your book and being positive as you work on your book. She suggested working on your novel at least 20 minutes a day every day, if not more. Sheila caught up with her for a quick chat and a few laughs.

Sheila and production partner Christopher Hopper met up at the Borders store on Park Ave. to do some interviews for Tor/Forge which was exciting since it was the first time the two had met in person after working togther for over 5 years.

It's a fun-filled week in NYC for COS and we'll keep you posted on the great things happening at ThrillerFest and beyond!

Revver- COS Social Media in Review

Revver has been around off and on for a few years. It used to be one of our most reliable sites, but over the last two years it became unstable. For a short time the site didn’t work at all, but recently it has started taking video uploads again.

Though it is listed on TubeMogul it has not been working correctly and any uploads we do have been directly to the site. It’s hit and miss whether or not the video actually uploads and displays.

We tried to reach out to the owners of the site and offer some assistance with some of their technical problems, but the phone number was discounted and we were never able to get anyone to return our email. They appear to have some kind of connection with the site – LiveVideo.com. That site has been problematic before as well and we have had a lot of problems with them. I don’t know if they are owned by the same people or not, but it is suspicious.
We don’t get a lot of views there anymore. I attribute this to the poor running of the site and lack of social opportunities.

I would love to see this site succeed. Our videos have done well there in the past and I’d love to see it thrive like it did in the beginning.

MetaCafe- COS Social Media in Review

We joined MetaCafe in Feb. of 2006 when it was young. We have nearly 500 videos posted there with views ranging anywhere from 50 to 3000.

Those videos with interesting and catchy descriptions seem to get the most views.

We have subscribers to our MetaCafe channel which is important since those people will get a notification when we upload a video.

There seems to be a more mature audience for us here. We have several videos that have over 3000 with the majority of those being suspense/thriller genre.
This site isn’t as big as YouTube or MySpace, but it has proven to be reliable with a good number of viewers interested in book trailers.

They do play pre-roll commercials, which is fine, but a little annoying. You can’t blame them though, they do need to make money and the pre-rolls are brief. It hasn’t seemed to hamper our view numbers. MetaCafe has a panel that reviews the video and sometimes they will mark our video 13+ which is like PG13. That doesn’t seem to hurt the number either.

There are options for bookmarking but we seldom use them from that site. We upload via TubeMogul, but check the profile and video performance once a week from the Metacafe site.

Relationships at the Heart of Publishing Success: How to Forge Them and How to Benefit From Them

Marketing your book is a matter of first, making friends and second, proving your value. When you combine the two you have a powerful arsenal in which to promote yourself.

The relationships you forge can foster your writing career. From support through the writing process to the connections made within the publishing industry, it’s the daily interactions that make any venture a success.

It is easier than ever before to get in contact with other writers as well as industry insiders. You don’t have to move to New York, just log on to the internet or attend writers conferences. Even conferences close to home are ripe with possibilities to connect with people that share the same interests and goals as you. To connect online, try for instance Facebook and Twitter. These websites provide group chats that will put you in contact with others in your field. When attending writing events, the main thing is to be open and say hello to every person you meet. These types of environments have jump-started the careers of many writers. Every person you meet offers something different and valuable to the writing community as should you. To determine what you can best offer others you need to play on your strengths. Do you want to be the critique buddy or BETA reader? A guru of your craft who provides insight as well as information? Perhaps you are the maven of Google who loves to search the web for titillating articles on the craft and business of writing. If that is the case, then posting links to save others time can be your value. Ideally you should aspire to play the roles of all of the above suggestions, it shows you are well rounded. Your connections with others needn’t be pure business either. Feel free to be at ease and joke, encourage or chat about life, it will endear you to your future friends, only watch what you say, it will make or break your reputation. Be willing to share your own knowledge and help others and they will be more receptive to your requests.

How much time should be devoted to networking is really dependant on personal circumstance like hours worked at a day job, family matters and writing time. The time spent writing should always exceed the time you spend networking. The number of sites you sign up for should be limited to a maximum of two, trying to keep up with any more could become quite a hassle. Hosting a blog should be another of your priorities. The blog will be the paramount asset of your career. Here you will be able to keep everyone up to date on your writing as well as share your thoughts on the industry and whatever else catches your fancy that is relevant to the theme of your blog. Later you can share information on any public or online appearances you make as well as book releases.

You’ve made friends, proved you’re an asset to the writing community and now you have a book coming out. How do you utilize your connections to promote your book? Blog tours are increasingly more popular than book signings. There are a plethora of blogs so limit yourself to the ones which are most likely to connect you with potential readers and that correlate best with your book. Optimally the blogs you tour will be high traffic and the host will know how best to promote your appearance on her site. Ask that your hosts include a link to your website or blog, a picture of the book and a link to a store where they can purchase the book.

A giveaway is another good avenue to take in order to grow an audience. Consider giving away bookmarks or totes that include the title of your book, your name as well as your website. This is a fun marketing strategy that garners you cheap advertisement and is also something useful to the recipient. A signed copy of your book can be the grand prize. On twitter you can qualify anyone to win your goodies by retweeting (or reposting) the information on their own account so that their friends can see your contest and participate. You can do something similar to this on Facebook as well. On your blog you might stipulate that anyone who follows you and posts an article on their own site about your blog is qualified to win.

A book trailer is an entertaining peek into the world of your characters, designed to entice the reader to want to find out more, thus going out to purchase the book. Post a link to the video you create on your blog and networking sites and ask others if they would include the video on the sidebar of their blog or website as well.

The success of a book ultimately comes down to creating relationships, from those you work with professionally to the people who buy your books. Eighty percent of all books are sold via word-of-mouth, thus your platform goal should be to reach as many as you can and make it easy and entertaining for them to spread the word. A professional website or blog, running contests and making a book trailer are all ways to appeal to your audience and make it fun for them to share information about your book with their friends. Be present in the online community and maintain your friendships and industry connections by balancing both the give and the take aspect of your relationships. A structured online platform where you not only take, but give back should be the heart of any marketing strategy.

~Lindsey Edwards

thewritewords-lindsey.blogspot.com

www.twitter.com/thoughtfulpen

Lindsey Edwards has written content for several web-based companies. She has published articles on the craft and business of writing through eHow, Writer’s Digest Guide to Literary Agents as well as her blog, The Write Words. She is currently working on a historical/fantasy romance series that she hopes to place with a publisher soon. She lives in Missouri with her husband and son.

COS Blog- BEA in Review- CEOs Debate on E-books

Commentary by Sheila English

I didn’t get to make it to the CEO panel much to my regret, so like many others I waited for PW to send out their daily review of what was going on at BEA so I could find out what was said.

Of course e-books was a hot topic and the panel had a variety of opinions. The panel included ABA CEO Oren Teicher, Workman Group publisher Bob Miller, Authors Guild’s new president Scott Turow, ICM executive v-p Esther Newberg, Ingram CEO Skip Prichard, Penguin CEO David Shanks and FSG president Jonathan Galassi. That’s a lot of publishing leadership!

I found it interesting that some felt piracy was a big issue with ebooks, and I agree it is, but like someone on the panel pointed out, piracy happens when people scan in the printed pages too. If someone wants to pirate a book to sell it illegally they will. My own observation is that people can, if motivated, re-type an entire book. Yes, that would be time consuming, but let’s face it, if it is a top seller it is worth doing it, or so I would think a criminal would consider it worth it. And criminals are not worried about the quality of the final product. So piracy is going to live with or without ebooks.

Still, let’s not make it easy for the bad guys. I’m all of looking into the best way to make piracy difficult.

I love the quote in the PW magazine by Skip Prichard saying that ebooks “did not cause piracy” which is 100% correct!

Article resource: BEA Show Daily – Day 2 Publisher’s Weekly Wed. May 26, 2010

COS Social Media in Review – Blip

Blip is one of the single most important online video sites COS utilizes. It is a powerhouse for getting your video to a variety of audiences.

Blip is part of the TubeMogul family, in which COS is a premiere client. We use Blip in many ways. First of all it is a wonderful venue and we see a good deal of views come from the Blip site itself. In addition, the site offers additional distribution opportunities, all of which we have applied. The Blip RSS feed also feeds other sites for us such as Blinx, which COS Productions has a contract with and a personalized channel.

The Blip players can be personalized which is great. We have several booksellers and specialty sites that use these and we are able to feed in the videos they want. Some want them all, some want only certain genres.

Interestingly, the top sites to use our Blip player feeds are iTunes, Odeo, Borders True Romance and Bubba’s Book Swap.

Blip won’t allow profiles that are commercial in nature and at one point they removed our entire profile saying the videos are all commercial. Once I called them and pointed out that we also supply webisodic content (The Lonesome Losers and Zombie Today) they agreed to put it back up, which they did immediately. I now have a contact in the tech department at Blip who says I can call him if that ever happens again. Lucky for me…he’s an avid reader!


• This series of articles reviews a variety of social media venues that Circle of Seven Productions and/or Reader’s Entertainment employees across the online universe.

7 Marketing Lessons You Can Learn From Nike

This is a guest post from Joanna Penn, from The Creative Penn: Writing, Publishing Options, Internet Sales and Marketing...For Your Book.

Whether you are trying to sell your first novel from your new website, or promote your latest product from an established speaking platform, there are lessons everyone can learn from mega marketers, Nike.

Create a brand that is memorable and easy to remember. Everyone knows the slogan “Just do it” and everyone knows the Nike swoosh. They are immediately recognisable. I even saw the swoosh painted on the paddle of a fishing outrigger canoe in the islands of Vanuatu a few years back. What is memorable about your brand, your books, your products or yourself? Can you create a brand or slogan that is easy to remember?

Focus on a niche. Nike are immediately recognisable as a sports-wear company. You don't go to Nike to buy designer evening wear or flat-pack furniture. It's very hard to dominate in multiple niches so the biggest companies don't even try. Who are your books and products for? If you think they are for everyone, you will find it hard to appeal to anyone. Decide on your target market, go where they are and market to them specifically.

Be everywhere. Nike are in physical stores around the world, but they also have internet sales. Plus they have free audio at iTunes, videos online, free blogs and podcasts and even software online for people to use. They provide ease of access to their products from anywhere in the world. How can you expand your platform to become an international, multi-media presence?

Create a community around your brand. Nike have a great community for runners where you can log your runs, learn more about training and even share music you run to. Seth Godin, marketing guru, talks about this in his book “Tribes”. People need leaders and groups to fit into. You can be one of them and create a loyal community around your brand or product.

Work with partners to create new opportunities. Joint ventures are a smart way to promote your product. You get an introduction to new people through someone they trust and access to a whole new market. You also get promotion to their list and new opportunities you would not have found on your own. But it is critical to only collaborate with a complimentary person/business. Nike and Apple iPod partnered to create running shoes integrated with the iPod so the music would match your running pace. This is an inspired joint venture where both parties benefitted. Who could you collaborate with to expand your marketing niche?

Have a product people want to buy that meets the expectations of your marketing. You can put a lot of effort into marketing and brand-building but there is little point unless you are going to make some money from it, or enhance your business somehow. Nike have lots of different products available that matches their marketing message. “Just do it” fits their active, sporty brand and they sell products to match. Do you have products that match your marketing? Does your marketing message attract your ideal customer?

Be in it for the long term and change with the times. Nike is a global company and a world leader in sports apparel. But did you know it was originally started in 1964 and began trading as Nike Inc in 1978? That business has been growing a long time and yet they have continually re-invented themselves for the new market. These days we all expect instant gratification, instant recognition, and instant sales but the best marketing builds on earlier efforts to create a brand over time. So think long term about your brand and your marketing and you will achieve more than you think.

Joanna Penn is an author, speaker and international consultant. Her blog http://www.TheCreativePenn.com provides articles, audio and video on Writing, Publishing, Internet Sales and Promotion...For Your Book. Visit the site for your free Author 2.0 Blueprint: Using Web 2.0 tools to write, publish, sell and promote your book. You can also find Joanna on Twitter @thecreativepenn

COS Social Media in Review – MySpace

We’re really thrilled to be an official MySpace video partner which happened in May of this year. Being an actual MySpace partner has some benefits. Now our videos accepted immediately without the filters most other video uploads have to go through. And if there are any problems with an upload or the content we have a direct line to MySpace for a quick resolution!

MySpace was once the main online social community for COS Productions and is still in the top 10. With over 9000 followers the site is a main staple for COS online social media. It’s a great way to deliver information and we utilize not only the video opportunities there, but blogging, bulletins and SEO.

The bulletins go out to all 9000+ followers, but because those announcements can sometimes get lost in the shuffle when someone has a lot of friends sending bulletins we send our bulletins out on different days and at different times to help ensure the most visibility of our messages.

The profile is easy to brand and you can see how we’ve created our own online presence to appear almost as its own website- http://www.myspace.com/cosbooktrailers

COS has made connections at MySpace with content managers in books, music, film and comics and have been able to have books or clients featured on MySpace books. For a while the MySpace books feature was left stagnating, but we have been invited to come to the MySpace corporate office to get a tour and a chat, which we will do this year.


• This series of articles reviews a variety of social media venues that Circle of Seven Productions and/or Reader’s Entertainment employees across the online universe.

COS Social Media in Review – DailyMotion

DailyMotion has proven to be a strong online video site. Part of the proof is that it is still around. Part of it is that is growing. Circle of Seven Productions signed a contract with DailyMotion so that we can offer “Official Content”. The contract is pretty basic, with promises that we’ll offer quality content that follows the laws of copyright and that we will provide consistent content. In exchange, DailyMotion will allow us to upload all content without the strict review process sometimes employed by social sites who must be concerned with copyright laws, etc.

But, more importantly to us, DailyMotion has agreed to feature some of our content on its main site or channels. Not all content is featured, but a good amount is and we’ve seen an increase recently in featured COS videos. That translates into more eyes on the videos and more video views.

Pros and Cons to the site.

Cons are that DailyMotion puts pre-roll ads before each video. Normally that’s not so bad, but when the majority of your own videos are 90 seconds long, a 10 or 15 second pre-roll seems pretty overkill.

There are a lot of advertisements on the site pages.


Pros are that links you put into the video description are live-links which means people can just click on them and be taken to the author’s page or the book product page. It encourages impulse buys or impulse curiosity that results in a click through.

The sites has some special features for sharing and presentation that we like and the profile pages is fairly customizable. You can see on the COS DailyMotion profile that we have branded the site- http://www.dailymotion.com/cosproductions

DailyMotion is also part of the TubeMogul video delivery. COS Productions is a premiere client of TubeMogul and it’s convenient to have this feature. We also RSS out to a lot of other sites from our DailyMotion site.

DailyMotion is a stable site worth investing time in and works hard to promote itself to viewers.



• This series of articles reviews a variety of social media venues that Circle of Seven Productions and/or Reader’s Entertainment employees across the online universe.

BEA a huge success for COS!

It all started with 500 new COS DVDs that were gone in the first day. The year before COS gave out 300 DVDs and they were gone by the third day. 

"I have to admit I was a little shocked when they told me were ran out the first day." Says COS CEO Sheila English. "But the up side to that is that a lot of people stopped me during the convention when they saw I was with Circle of Seven Productions. So the word got out fast!"

COS has increased their presense this year at several conventions and for BEA, which is the biggest convention COS attends, we added a meeting room in additinon to the DVDs and sponsorship.  Next year the plan is to have the meeting room again, new DVDs and perhaps a booth for Reader's Entertainment Group.

CEO Sheila English w/ Dot Lin from Tor/Forge

AAP Reports GOOD NEWS in Publishing Sales at BEA

I can always use some good news. I read about how sales are down here and they're closing bookstores there, it gets a little discouraging. But, finally, we get some good news from the AAP and I wanted to share a little bit of that with you!

Book sales increased by 16.6% in March with is $458.2 million dollars and were up by 8% for the year!!!

Hardcover adult category, audio books and University Press hardcover books all saw a fairly significant increase.

All of this was reported by the Association of American Publishers this week.

I have to say that COS has seen an increase in the number of book videos we're doing and I wondered if that was a reflection of the overall health of the industry. And though I don't know that they are related, I'm hoping it does signify a better year for publishing overall.

Posted from BEA!

COS Social Media in Review – Facebook

Facebook is a favorite of ours and we have 3 places on Facebook that you can find us. Each place offers something different and in a bit I’ll tell you why that’s important.

COS delivers our videos via RSS feed to our Book Video Facebook page. Every single video that COS distributes will be sent there. This is important for SEO reasons and because we want people on Facebook to be able to share the videos. But that’s not the most popular of all the COS Facebook profiles.

Circle of Seven Productions has a Fan Page, an official COS Facebook page that we keep up on fairly regularly. In 2010 we have plans to be more “present” on the fan page with some behind the scenes, professional marketing information, future projects listings and information on conventions we attend. But that’s not the most popular of the COS Facebook profiles either.

The Facebook profile that over 2000 people follow is www.facebook.com/booktrailers and is the online home of COS Productions CEO Sheila Clover English. This is where the CEO lets her hair down, so to speak.

“It lets people see me as a person. I don’t have to be an expert, a marketer or a ‘CEO’ there. I’m just me.” Says English. She goes on to share, “I started playing a few online games since it allowed me to have fun with people who wanted to get to know me. And before I knew it people who had no idea what book trailers even were started commenting on my wall about books when I’d show a trailer there.”

English is an avid animal enthusiast and offers a good deal of her own brand of personal humor there. It has endeared her to many of her Facebook followers and helped create loyalty as well as engagement with the reading (and even the only-sometimes-reading) public.

The reason having an online social community connection is important is that it allows people to have a more personal bond with you. The site isn’t a sales and marketing site. It’s a place to kick back and make friends. From that organic relationships grow and so does trust, which is very important when you do so much online.

Sheila invites everyone to stop by, become a friend, talk books, play Mafia Wars, check out pictures of her family and travels and of course learn of the mischievous antics of Jack, her half Chihuahua, half Jack Russell puppy.



• This series of articles reviews a variety of social media venues that Circle of Seven Productions and/or Reader’s Entertainment employees across the online universe.

The COS Blog

I've gone back and forth between Facebook, MySpace, Future Perfect Publishing, COS website news, Reader's Entertainment Blog and the COS newsletter posting things here and there that interest me, irritate me or amuse me. I guess I spend more time on Facebook, but do more writing on the COS website news blog.

So, I sat down and took a look at where I'm at and what I'm doing and decided that I do different things in different places and that's okay.

On Facebook I'm really just me. I write about my work, my dogs, my travels and just about anything that catches my attention. I do post to the COS Fan Page there, but I'm on my personal site more often than I sleep! LOL

MySpace is where I post things that are more for that particular community. I know who follows that blog and I write about MySpace events, trailers and industry stuff. You won't find things about my puppies there or my feelings about videos I find on YouTube.

Future Perfect Publishing asked me to be a contributing blogger a few years ago and I try to send them a blog quarterly that is very specific to the industry and book video.

The COS website has a feature on the main page that shows you the current COS news or press coverage and I write there about the things going on at COS. What I'm hoping to do is find a way to get that over to the COS Facebook fan page and we're working on that now.

Reader's Entertainment is specifically for reader interest. It isn't an industry blog. It's about books, book videos, book reviews, reading and covers all genres. At some point this year there will be a blog for each genre and we will advertise for each genre channel. Guest bloggers will be invited to blog and we will advertise their blogs each month in the COS newsletter and in some paid advertising.

The COS Newsletter is full of COS news, but it also has reader interest items like reviews and book trailers and it talks about what I'm doing, the radio shows I host and things that I think would interest the over 1000 people who subscribe to our newsletter.

Here, on this blog, I want to continue writing about general interest things that involve COS. That might be blogs about the sites we upload to or contract with or maybe it will be about the publishers we work with, behind the scenes stuff, marketing trends, etc.

I don't know if people are interested in the "behind the scenes" stuff or not, but I'm going to do a series about it to see how it is received and will keep an eye on the type of blog posts that seem to get the most attention and then start to write more of those. So, I guess it can be said that, if you read it...I will write it! lol

Monday's are now designated for a series of blogs I'm doing, or someone at COS will do, about the different online upload sites we send our videos to. It will be a frank discussion of how those sites perform, why we choose to upload there and whether or not we think the actual sites is good or not.

Friday's I will do a blog about whatever I'm thinking about that day. Could be anything at all. And, Wednesdays I am going to start writing, or having someone from COS write, about the making of certain videos.

I will ask for guest bloggers for Thursdays to talk about trends in marketing and technology.

All of this will start after I return from BEA in NYC. I will be there all week next week, returning on the 31st of May.

Hope you'll stop by here and check out the blog!

COS Social Media in Review - YouTube

Welcome to a new blog series we're doing called COS Social Media in Review! We will talk each week about certain sites we're on and why we're on them! This week we're starting with YouTube!

YouTube is generally thought of as the end-all and be-all of video placement. It’s true that you can’t ignore the online video giant and your videos need to be there, but as far as book video goes it isn’t the best placement from a sales standpoint.

YouTube is a great place for silly videos, celebrity videos, controversy and pop culture. Not the greatest place for book video. Now, like any other landscape, that can always change, but at present this is true.

Yes, there are book videos that have tens of thousands even hundreds of thousands of views, but those are the exception, not the rule. The majority of COS Productions book videos get over 5000 views each with many that have tens of thousands. And yes, I’ve seen the Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters video that got over 200,000 views, but please see above explanation of what kind of videos do well on YouTube, those videos will do well for quite some time.

So WHY should is COS on YouTube at all? Here are some reasons-

1. YouTube is the #2 search engine on the internet
2. YouTube is one of the first places people go to when looking for a video they’ve heard about.
3. YouTube gives YOUR VIDEO great SEO across Google and other search engines.
4. You can’t ignore a place that has so many potential viewers.
5. YouTube has a lot of accessories like easy mobile phone viewing, captions, easy sharing, etc.
6. YouTube uses HTML5 which can be seen on iPhones and iPods unlike Flash

COS actually advertises our YouTube channel throughout the year in order to bring in new subscribers and build viewership. Making people aware that our YouTube channel is the “go-to” place for book video helps create a central place readers are aware of for books on YouTube.

COS has more than just one YouTube channel. Since moving toward a genre-specific business plan with our video distribution we have begun to create more genre specific sites so that people interested only in a certain genre of book can go there. Yes, we could make playlists on our main channel, but there are benefits to having these in addition to the main channel. You can see one of our other YouTube channels by going to YouTube and looking for InFaithNetwork.

Technically speaking it is important to watch what YouTube is doing behind the scenes. They are such a giant that the future of video technology can often be seen there first. We have someone who monitors all the new technology and opportunities YouTube offers to both viewers and content creators. COS has taken some of the YouTube technology and employed it for better mobile device engagement and we’ve even been able to create a simple software program wherein we can input a YouTube link to one of our videos and we are given special embed code that gives the highest quality, quickest upload speed and removes any other ads or videos at the end.

YouTube analytics is a great help to us as well. It lets us know who is watching, from where, how they got to us and who is using the video. We did a study a little over a year ago to see how long someone watches a video. Unless that person was very famous, the video had media or pop culture tie-ins or it has something that stood out over all other book videos happening at that time, people really only watched book video for about 90 seconds. What that told us is that we needed to get the call-to-action message in before 90 seconds was up. This information changed how COS did video and we now try to keep all videos under 90 seconds as a rule. Of course some videos really do work best with more content, such as author interviews or music video trailers, but for your standard book video viewer 90 seconds is golden.

COS has received over 2.5 million views to our YouTube channel and we’ve created a wonderful community there. Our subscriber numbers continue to climb.

• This series of articles reviews a variety of social media venues that Circle of Seven Productions and/or Reader’s Entertainment employees across the online universe.

Social Media Marketing – Marketing to the senses

Instead of sending a message in the way that is best for us, the marketer, we should ask ourselves – What way is best for our intended audience?



Instead of sending a message in the way that is best for us, the marketer, we should ask ourselves – What way is best for our intended audience?

Examine your audience.

You should ask yourself at least three questions about your audience –



How do they normally consume information?
- Radio
- Television
- Online
- Live events


Where do they usually seek it?
- news/media sites directly or bookmarking sites (Digg, StumbleUpon, etc.)
- social sites
- podcasts- Blogtalk, iTunes, Bluebrry, Odeo
- industry outlets (eMarketer, Publisher’s Weekly)
- Friends and family (word of mouth)

How are they retaining information?

Most people have a preference of how they teach themselves to retain information.
We want to tap into that in order to have them retain our message.

The three main ways someone learns are-

Visual
Auditory
Experience (Kinesthetic)

Most people use a combination, but have a preference toward one.

You should identify your general audience, the way they consume information, where they get it and then identify their preferences.
The link below gives you some tips on how to identify learning/retaining styles.

http://homeworktips.about.com/od/homeworkhelp/a/learningstyle.htm


If you’re looking to target a very specific audience work your marketing campaign toward the identified style of accepting, processing and retaining information and deliver your message via that route.

If you are looking to get a message out to a larger, general audience, identify a specific promotional idea and apply one idea per style of learning.

For an example see this site-

http://www.cosproductions.com/specialmarketingpackage.php



Visual is covered with video.

Auditory is covered with radio/podcast.

Experience is covered with blogging, radio and Twitter where the audience is invited to participate in the conversation.

Don’t forget to always include a funnel toward your website when using any of these methods.

Visual
For video you should have a call to action, your URL at the end of the video and within the description when you upload it.

Auditory
For auditory, whether that is radio or a pre-recorded podcast you’re putting on your site, include the call to action whether that is to participate in something, or a reminder at the end as to why they need you.

Experience
When blogging or using Twitter be sure to ask questions that invite participation and try to keep that conversation going as long as you can.
If you’re able to meet someone in person this is ideal since live interaction is possible.

Match the learning/retaining style to the outlet

If your audience is visual and their preference is industry outlets you can create a video to use as an ad in those outlets, or find a way to include the names of those outlets in your video, description or tags.

If your audience prefers word of mouth, try becoming a trusted resource, or join a strong community specific to your market. Check the various Ning.com sites for example.

Marketing isn’t just about putting your product in front of who you believe your audience is. It’s about getting the message to stick and creating fertile ground for your message to grow.

When Opposites Attract, The Fire is Ignited

People will contend often that, in the game of love, opposites attract. If you are open to testing the validity of that "physical" theory, then look no further than the extreme case of Drew Black and Gillian Noode, an unlikely pair fitted together on a circumstantial basis. Gillian, a PR expert with a talent for smoothing over a man's rough edges, has to help Drew clean up his image before his heated temperament takes him too far and compromises his profession as a sports club president. But Drew is the most extreme case that she has seen, and now, with proximity working against her, she is starting to find Drew's raw personality somehow impossible to resist. Tempers and desires are ignited in Back in Black, the newest novel by Lori Foster. Check out this sensual and provocative release from Foster to find out who will end up on top in this heated conflict between opposing forces.
Foster, a New York Times bestselling author, has written more than sixty novels in the romance genre. Her contemporary works have brought her much praise and many awards, and Back in Black will prove no different. It is bound to keep her readers wanting more. The novel will be a must for Foster followers, but it will make an excellent addition to your romance collection even if you have never encountered Foster's work before.

Shades of Blue - Interview with Karen Kingsbury

This book was so hard to put down. Karen Kingsbury is one of those authors who lure you in with such well written stories that you find time slipping away as you sit there engrossed in the book.

This book tackles some tough topics in a loving and realistic way.

Brad Cutler lives in New York and has a dream job. A dream life! He is engaged to the love of his life who also happens to be the boss’s daughter. Brad is a Christian man and the relationship between him and Laura seems perfect. But, a past sin comes back to haunt Brad and before he can marry Laura and start his new life with her he has to go back home to North Carolina and right a wrong. Unfortunately that means seeing his old high school sweetheart. Brad only makes matters worse when he doesn’t confide in Laura about Emma and what happened many years ago.

This book is thoughtful and one that makes you think about what really matters in life.