Q&A a la Ann Landers: Book Trailers ™, Videos and Your Book

Question: Do you think videos, movies and the like actually help book sales? Or generated more interest in your books?

Answer: I'm repeating my old refrain here, I know. But videos, like any other kind of promotion, will only work as hard as you work it. A few stragglers will find a video if you post it and that's not necessarily a bad thing but a few stragglers are not enough to warrant the effort and the expense (I'm the FRUGAL book promoter, remember?). But if you let people know about your trailer or video in the thousands of ways one might do that, it can certainly help you with exposure and that's part of your branding and branding--if not sooner then later--eventually leads to sales.(-:

Even if you promote your trailer or video, it must still be a part of a frequent and long term campaign. You might want to see the one that was just done for me by Rey Ybarra on the home page of www.howtodoitfrugally.

One of my online pals Nikki Leigh, listmom to WelcometoReadersStation@yahoogroups.com, noted that it seems a bit redundant to have to promote what you produced to promote. It does, doesn't it! But here are ways to utilize your videos or moving collages or whatever without spending a lot of time doing it. Let's call them passive promotions of your video:

1. Post them in places that your readers will visit anyway:
 Your website
 Your blogs
 Your social networks (like Shelfari and Facebook)

2. Give them to people who promote for you:
 Your publisher(s)
 The editors of websites that interview you or use your articles

3. The obvious place that most people are using for their videos, YouTube will get more visits if you:
 Include the URL for it in your e-mail autosignature
 Include the URL for it everywhere you do anything, all the places listed above, maybe even the taglines in the freelance articles to write and more.

4. Use them on computer and TV screens when you speak, sign books or do other events.

Do you have any other ideas our readers could use to passively promote videos? Let's hear about them in the comments below.
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Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author THIS IS THE PLACE; HARKENING: A COLLECTION OF STORIES REMEMBERED; TRACINGS, a chapbook of poetry; and two how to books, THE FRUGAL BOOK PROMOTER: HOW TO DO WHAT YOUR PUBLISHER WON'T; and THE FRUGAL EDITOR: PUT YOUR BEST BOOK FORWARD TO AVOID HUMILIATION AND ENSURE SUCCESS.
Her other blogs include TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com and AuthorsCoalition.blogspot.com, a blog that helps writers and publishers turn a ho-hum book fair booth into a sizzler.