How to Use YouTube to Land a 7-Figure Publishing Deal

Just read this in Publisher's Weekly. A man by the name of Rupert Isaacson got the interest of Curtis Brown agent Elizabeth Sheinkman in representing him for his book, The Horse Boy, about his forthcoming trip to Mongolia with his son on horseback to visit shamans, which had a mysterious calming impact on his son, who had autism. After it piqued Sheinkman's interest, she immediately began proceedings to pitch it to the big publishing houses. But, as he was putting footage together about this trip, and was tinkering with the idea of putting this footage up at YouTube, Sheinkman decided to wait until it was up, then she pitched the idea to Little, Brown sending them the link to the trailer with the proposal. Isaacson ended up with a seven-figure major publishing deal. Sheinkman hesitates to say whether the trailer was the selling point, but she does think it helped.

I would say it definitely didn't hurt. Visual aids sell. Picture this. The main bigwigs are sitting at a big, oblong shiny mahogany table puffing cigars and listening to agents give their proposals and in walks Sheinkman with not only a proposal, but a video of the book. Well, actually, it was all done by email or sent by snail mail, but think about it. The bigwigs have called it a day and are sitting back in their boxers, chilling in their million dollar homes with a fire burning, a few martinis have been consumed, and the last thing they want to think about is more work. For kicks, one opens up his laptop to check on something not really important...maybe play a few online video games or check or a few games of online poker...and he sees an email from an agent. He groans as he's been doing this all day long, but something makes him do it...I call it the obsessive glutton for punishment syndrome.

He clicks on it and the proposal sounds interesting, but he yawns for lack of sleep. Not that the premise is bad, he thinks, but after all, this is HIS time and he knew better than to even bring his laptop home in the first place.

So, his eyes are glazed and he's not really making out the words (the martinis are starting to kick in) and he clicks on the link that the agent sent him.

It leads him to YouTube. By now, he's a little curious. Why did she send me to YouTube?

And...he watches...real footage of this guy and his son traveling to Mongolia by horseback to see shamans to help his son who has autism. Real footage.

He spills his martini in his lap as he's frantically searching for his cell so that he can call his comrades that run the big publishing house...and the rest is history.

And...Isaacson climbs out from obscurity into fame and fortune.

Interesting story and it really makes you wonder just how powerful book trailers have gotten in the last few years. Where once they were used for entertainment purposes (I still get a kick out of watching them), now we're using them for promotional vehicles to sell our books, whether it's to our readers...or perhaps...that NY publishing house.

So, let's give this another perspective. What if we made a book trailer of a book that we are pitching to agents and sent them the link in our proposal for them to check it out at YouTube? Would that entice them to ask for at least a partial?

And, what about pitching to movie directors for books that are already published?

I'd be curious to find out.

Tags: How to Pump UP Your Blog to Sell More Books, YouTube, free book promotion workshop, book trailer, online book promotion, Publisher's Weekly, Rupert Isaacson, Curtis Brown, Elizabeth Sheinkman, The Horse Boy, movie directors