Online video seen as the future of book marketing

Here's an online video that does a pretty good job of selling a book. In this case, Tim Sykes is pitching his book An American Hedge Fund to Amazon shoppers.

At first glance, you might be skeptical of this book -- or any other book that promises a ton of money. But seeing a pitch directly from the author adds credibility. If I were shopping for a book like this and trying to choose between this one and a competing book, everything else being equal, I'd probably buy this one -- based on the strength of the video and the connection it provides to the author.

Sykes, who self-published the book, says Amazon charged him $2,500 to display the video on his book's detail page. (Of course that doesn't include the costs of producing the video.) But there's speculation Amazon will soon allow authors to post videos for free using its Connect author blogging tool. In a recent survey, Amazon asked Connect participants whether adding videos to the program would be a good idea. Videos are already permitted in Amazon book reviews.

The great thing about Sykes' video is it's obvious he's talking to you -- the person shopping on Amazon. It's intimate, unlike most book videos, which resemble anything from a bad movie preview to a C-SPAN clip. I don't expect most author videos will be this good. Many will be generic crud from PR departments of big publishers -- the exact opposite of this one.

---------------
If you like my articles, click the orange button to subscribe:

Steve Weber is author of Plug Your Book! Online Book Marketing for Authors