How to Get Your Book Trailer # 1 at YouTube

Before we continue with the "HOW TO PUMP UP YOUR BLOG TO SELL MORE BOOKS WORKSHOP," I have a little whoo-hoo news I'd like to share.

The book trailer for the paranormal novel that Heide Kaminski, Pam Lawniczak and I wrote, The Search for the Million $$$ Ghost, is the #1 book trailer at YouTube this morning! If you'd like to see it, go to http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=book+trailer. Out of over 2,000 book trailers up at YouTube, ours came in first. Incredible.

If you were paying attention to what we were talking about concerning using search words to create a powerful online presence, this has a lot to do with it, even with what I've learned by studying how YouTube's ranking system works.

Before I even explain what I've learned, let's first touch on what makes one book trailer more professional over the other. I make book trailers for authors and the number one thing I've learned is that you have to really, really, really know what the book is about. Self-explanatory, but if you don't zero in on the main conflict of the book in 2 or so minutes or less, the book trailer isn't going to do any good. Also, bloggers talk about trailers. I've heard some bloggers really condemn some, leading them to the page on YouTube where you can see it for yourself. Don't let that happen to you.

Your book trailer must be entertaining, of course, but it must be used as a "teaser" to get people to order the book. The music you choose must match the theme of your book, and the photos you use to include in your trailer, must help the potential buyer to get an idea of what the book is about. Self-explanatory, but I've seen trailers, while they looked pretty well done, didn't give me that conflict that I needed to entice me to buy the book. Trailers are promotional videos for your book. They are not used solely for entertaining...they are a vehicle that you can use to tap onto the visual aspects of your book. To get an idea of what a trailer is supposed to look like, look at the opening promotional commercials before movies. How many have you said after watching them, "Oh man, I've got to see this movie when it comes out!"?

That's what you want your book trailer to do.

So, let's get back to YouTube. YouTube has various criterias on what trailers land in the number one spot. Let's use my book trailer, for example. Go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOklaNgirZI and look directly underneath the trailer itself.

You will see how many people have rated my trailer, how many people have viewed it, how many people have commented, how many have put my trailer in their favorites, how many have given it honors and how many have linked to it.

As you can see, I've been rated five times. This is one of the criteria for getting top placement in YouTube. But, it's only part of the reason.

I've had over 400 views, but I really don't think this has to do with anything. I've seen way more views on other book trailers.

I have no comments, so I really don't think this makes any difference.

Now, I've been favorited three times. This is very good, but still, there are more book trailers up on YouTube that are favorited more.

I have no honors, so I really don't know how much importance this would have, although I'm sure it's a good thing. But, in my case, that's obviously not the reason my trailer came in at first place.

I have four people linking to my trailer, which is a really good thing, too, but still again, I had four people linking to me days ago and my trailer wasn't in the first position, and I don't even think I was on the first PAGE of top book trailers at the time.

So, what's this all mean?

All the things I've mentioned DO have importance in ranking, but if you want the #1 spot, the answer lies in your tags and this is what I've been talking about in the workshop. Those key search words that you put in when submitting your book trailer to YouTube makes a very BIG difference as you can see.

Although these search words have been up since I put the trailer up on January 4th, and it's just now getting in the #1 spot, I have learned that it takes a combination of things.

1.) Using key search words efficiently
2.) Getting people to rank you
3.) Getting people to "favorite" you
4.) Getting people to link to your trailer directly at YouTube
5.) Having a professional-looking book trailer so people will do all these things

If you do all these things, I'll guarantee your book trailer will hit #1, too, but I can't stress this more...what I have learned is that those tags are going to play a very important factor in this, so make sure you choose them wisely.

That's it for now...I'll be answering a few questions that people have asked about what we've covered so far, then we'll move on to the next step to PUMP UP YOUR BLOG TO SELL MORE BOOKS!


Tags: How to Pump UP Your Blog to Sell More Books, YouTube, free book promotion workshop, book trailer, online book promotion, The Search for the Million $$$ Ghost, paranormal novel, key search words

Week-End Update

Hope everyone had a wonderful week-end, and I just wanted you all to know we'll start back in first thing tomorrow morning with more promo tips on how to PUMP UP your blog to sell more books. I've got a couple questions I haven't answered yet, so they'll be posted first.

I've been real busy over the week-end...the fun just never stops. Heh. No, really, I do enjoy doing this, more so than writing sometimes, but I really don't want to give up those wonderful books that are languishing in my to-be-published files either. I just figure it'll all balance out in the long run.

I'm in the middle of putting together a book trailer for one of online buddies. If anyone has never experienced the thrill of putting one of this "mini-movies" for your book together before, let me tell you...you better have a bottle of Boones Farm nearby. You have to be a director, cinematographer, graphic artist and writer all at the same time. Very challenging, but when you finally have this all come together, it's really something to be proud of.

About a year or two ago, I heard about these book trailers and I really wanted one. I checked around for someone to do this for me, and was I floored at how much they charged. But, now, I know why...it takes about a week of constant thinking and the actual hands-on work involved to have this come together right. I'm a perfectionist. I'll dream about it long after I've turned the computer off for the night...in fact, that's the first thing I thought of when I woke up this morning. Obsessed to the max.

In other news, I've been challenged. Now, this is a fun challenge. Someone has offered me MOOLAH to see if I can find bloggers who would be interested in hosting him on his next virtual book tour. You know what I say about this? Pshish. But, the catch is, they have to be a certain kind of blog...don't want to give too much away...but, yes, this has been challenging, but way fun. In fact, I will be hosting this person on my blog in the near future (although it's not counted in the ten I will find for him).

Well, I've been given a week to do this. Can I do it? Yes, I can!

And that's the kind of attitude I want you all to have. Nothing is impossible. You don't have to reach for the stars...have them come to you!

That's it for now...see you tomorrow!

Tags: How to Pump UP Your Blog to Sell More Books, site meter, free book promotion workshop, virtual book tour, online book promotion, book trailer

How to PUMP UP Your Blog to Sell More Books - Pt III - Starting from Ground Zero - Tracking Your Visitors

Welcome back!

Today we'll be talking about tracking your visitors. Why should we care where our visitors are coming from?

For one thing, we need to know which search words are bringing them to our blog, and one of the ways you can do this is with a sitemeter (www.sitemeter.com), although there are various other site tracking devices. I choose to use sitemeter to illustrate this point simply because that is what I am familiar with, and have discovered how to use if effectively so that I can pass on the information to you.

Much of this everyone already knows, but for those who would like to be guided through the process, I'll show you how to do this step-by-step.

Log into www.sitemeter.com and you see where it says login? Ignore it. Go all the way down the page and to the left, it will say "sign up for a free meter." Click it.

The next page explains what Sitemeter is. Click "next."

The next page explains Sitemeter's policies. Click "next."

The next page, you will put in your blog url (for example, http://www.pumpupyouronlinebookpromotion.blogspot.com). Then, your site's name which for me would be "Pump Up Your Online Book Promotion." Then, your codename. Put anything related to what your blog is about. For example, I might put "pumpupblog."

Set your current time and hit "next."

The next page is all about you and is self-explanatory. Fill in all the fields and hit "next."

If you don't want enough spam to fill up twenty email boxes, skip the next page by hitting "next."

Check the next page over carefully in case you need to change anything. If so, hit "back." If you're good to go, hit "next."

Even though the next page says your signup is complete, it's really not. Hit "change the style of your site meter" and the next page will give you options as to how you want your site meter to look. Hit one of them, then "select," and then wait for your option to be saved.

Once the page reloads, look into the left hand sidbar and you'll see the words, "html code." Hit it.
The next page will give you directions as to how to apply your site meter onto your particular blog. If you know how to go into your template, you can simply scroll all the way down the page and hit "some help here," although if you have a blogger account such as this one, you can just hit "Adding sitemeter to a Blogger.com account" and follow directions which are pretty simple.

But, if you are still confused, and know how to add code into your template, hit "some help here" at the bottom of the page which I just mentioned.

Scroll all the way to the bottom of the next page and you'll see two html codes. My recommendation is to use the first one. Hit "copy as," then take it over to your template and add the code.

All there is to it.

Now, let me explain what I like about sitemeter and how I use it to track my visitors.

Self-explanatory, but your sitemeter will tell you what search words people are using to get to your blog. What you should do is carefully examine these words because these are those key search words we've been talking about. These are the words you have in the content of your blog, whether you intentionally put them or not. If the set of key search words you had in mind aren't showing up, then you aren't applying them frequently enough.

But, let's just say that people are using words in search that aren't even related to your blog and you want to know what you're doing wrong. You're not doing a thing wrong. The search engines' spiders have pulled these words out to give to this particular person a reason to land on your blog. It's all good, whether they have a thing to do with your blog or not.

I did a real fun experiment on my blog at www.overthehillchick.blogspot.com. There are certain search words that really do get a lot of hits. If you go right now to www.yahoo.com and look at the bottom right of the page, it will tell you what searches are getting the most hits.

At the time, "sex" was a pretty popular sex word (don't ask...I'm just the messenger).

For the experiment, I posted the word "sex" in the title of one of my posts, and watched the site meter. You would be surprised as to how many people visited my site on that day. What a surprise when they got there and it was all about a boomer chick, and not a wild one at that. If you want to see how I did this, you can visit Hot Sex and How to Do It and Sex, Sex, Sex.

So, this proved to me that titles are so very important.

Guess that's it for today. Add your site meter and watch where your visitors come from. They might just surprise you!

Tags: How to Pump UP Your Blog to Sell More Books, site meter, free book promotion workshop, sex

How to PUMP UP Your Blog to Sell More Books Workshop - Pt. III - Starting from Ground Zero - Question about Book Covers

I thought a new blog post was needed instead of answering Kathy Holmes' question in the comment section, so here it is. Kathy asks, "I have my cover posted on the sidebar of my blog, but do you think it's important to highlight it in a post also?"

Great question, Kathy!

As for the graphic itself, it's fine just the way it is, and doesn't need to be highlighted in a post unless you come up with a new angle (about your book such as a review or book tour or anthing like that) and want to use the cover to go with the blog post. BTW, I love how you posted a link underneath the cover to lead visitors to an excerpt. Great promotional tactic!

If you mean blog about the book, yes, most definitely, keeping in mind to actually mention the book's title as often as you can so that the search engines will pick up on it. Actually, as you know, I visit your blog frequently, and I do know you use key search words throughout your blog. I'm curious, since you do have a site meter, what kind of hits are you getting using these words? Is it paying off? Do you find that most of your hits are from the search engines when people put in these certain search words or do you find a mixture of key search words and other words that you might not have thought would bring people to your blog?

Tags: How to Pump UP Your Blog to Sell More Books, Key Search Words, free book promotion workshop, Kathy Holmes

How to PUMP UP Your Blog to Sell More Books Workshop - Pt. III - Starting from Ground Zero

Good morning everyone! Are we all ready to pump up our blogs to sell more books? Great!

To recap, what we have done so far is taken our blogs and realized how important those search words we include in them are for our readers (and buyers!) to find us. We want those search words in the title of as many blog posts as we can, and we need them sprinkled in as many blog posts as we can, without being obtrusive.

One very, very important thing that I might not have mentioned at this point is that if you are already published, or you're about to be published and have received your book cover graphic, PUT THE COVER ON YOUR BLOG. And I don't just mean in a blog post. That cover has to be in the sidebar where everyone can see it as soon as they open your blog up. Your blog is basically going to be the selling page for your book. Or, one of them, anyway.

One of my new clients has just started a blog, which I highly recommended her to do to create pre-buzz for a new book she will be having come out in the upcoming months. It's never too early to start creating that platform, and what she will be doing until then is developing it by blogging about the subject of her book.

What I will be doing is using her blog as an example of how easy it is to pump up a new blog to the point where she will be receiving lots of visitors if we play our cards right.

We will learn how to add features such as email newsletters, labels, tags, widgets, images, tracking devices, visual aids, all sorts of fun things that will help get visitors to our blogs.

So, let's begin by using Marilyn Celeste Morris' new blog, Once a Brat, in learning how to take a fresh blog and turn it into a powerful online promotional vehicle. Marilyn's blog is what I call unpumped down to the bare bone. What we're starting with is a fresh slate, but a good beginning as it is a blog with great potential because she is going to use it as as promotional vehicle to sell one of her previous books, Once a Brat, and to create pre-buzz for her next book, Camp Sobingo, that is closely related in theme and genre.

Go over there and view the blog before we turn it into a pumped up promotional machine. After we are finished with this part of pumping up our blog to sell more books, I'll send you to Marilyn's blog to see how well she has progressed since we first started this session.

After we are finished discussing the different ways you can pump up your book/author blog, we'll begin to understand the different ways we can PROMOTE it, so stay tuned!

If you have any questions at this point, leave them in the comment box below and I'll get to them as they come in. I still have a few questions I haven't answered, but they will be answered in the next few posts. Meanwhile, pump up that blog by adding fresh content and using your key seach words frequently!

Tomorrow's Lesson: How to Pump Up Your Blog by tracking your visitors!

Tags: ground zero, How to Pump UP Your Blog to Sell More Books, Key Search Words, Marilyn Celeste Morris, free book promotion workshop, Once A Brat

Blogging About Books: Question about Key Search Words

Good morning, everyone! I have a question from Cynthia about using key search words. She asks:

"I've started a blog recently to expand my readership. But I'm not sure what keywords I can use for my blog. I tried Latinos and writers, but that seems too general. Please help. The blog is Chica Latina, and you can find it at http://chica-latina.blogspot.com."

Without going to your blog, Cynthia, have you thought about using the key words "Latina blog"? Sometimes, the answer is right under our nose, even as simple as it sounds. Think of the person doing the search. What is he/she looking for? Is he putting "Latinos" or "writers" in search? Highly unlikely, but he might be be Latina and looking for other bloggers of his nationality. I do this all the time. I'm forever putting "boomer generation blog" in blog searches because I love reading blogs written by those of my age. Any boomers out there? Let me know!

Just for kicks, and before going to your blog, I put "Latina blog" in google blog search just to see what was up there. I was mainly looking for your blog, but I didn't see it on the first page anyway. You can check it out here. If you put "boomer chick" in the same search engine, you'll see my blog coming in at #1 out of 17,800 other websites here.

But, that's not saying your blog might not be coming up with different search words, and that's why it's so important to zero in on your search words before you even begin to put your blog together.

Again just for kicks, I put in "Chica Latina" and there was a blog coming up third that looked like it could be yours, but it led me to a page that didn't have anything related to your blog, so I'm figuring this was an old blog?

But, the thing is, "chica latina" looks like it would work for you, but how many people would be putting that in search?

To answer that question, I took those words and put them in something I have downloaded onto my desktop called "Good Key Words." It's a free program that anyone can download, and everyone should have. I believe the link is www.goodkeywords.com. The results were 351 people put that phrase in this particular search engine (Overture) in the last month. Not real impressive, but it's okay.

And still for more kicks, I put "latina blog" in there, and it showed only 73 people over the last month.

Play around with search words by downloading Good Key Words and see which key words would work better for you. Keep an eye on your sitemeter, if you have one. Which key words are bringing people to your blog? That's a clue to what words you should be using.

Sometimes it's hard coming up with an exact set of key search words or phrases. If it's too difficult narrowing it down, have several. There's no law saying you can't have several key words or phrases that would be good for this. The key is to use them repeatedly, without being obnoxious. The most important places to have them would be in your title, your blog post headings and within the body of your posts, as much as possible.

BTW, I have littered each and every one of these blog posts with key search words. Can you pick them out?

Pumping up your blog with your key search words is the key to succesful online book promotion!
Cynthia, hope this helps!

The next post in this free book promotion workshop, HOW TO PUMP UP YOUR BLOG TO SELL MORE BOOKS will be about finding ways to get the word out about your blog. Meanwhile, if you have any question about what we've covered so far, or even something we haven't, but you're curious or confused about, leave a comment in the comment box. Your question will be delivered to my email box and I will answer it within the next day.

Thanks for being here, everyone, and happy promoting to you!

Tags: Blogging about Books, How to Pump UP Your Blog to Sell More Books, Key Search Words, chica latina, good key words, online book promotion, free book promotion workshop

Blogging About Books: How to Blog About Two Books Of the Same Genre

I had an interesting question from Celise Downs about how to blog about two different books but with the same theme.

First, to recap, for the fiction author, there are several roads you can take as far as blogging about your book. One, you can have one of your characters host their own blog such as how Sandy Lender does it for her main character, Abigail (Choices Meant for Gods) and you have seen how well Frances Lynn has pulled it off for both her books, Crushed and Frantic (both from Eiworth Publishing).

Both authors should be commended for the extra time they put into this which rates a 10 on my pumping up your blog scale!

While it's a lot of extra work, both authors will find that as long as they keep their blogs pumped up, they are at least doing their part to make sure their marketing campaign never runs out of steam. Highly commendable.

Now, the question from Celise Downs is this.

She says, "In keeping with Frances' theme of setting up separate blogs for her two books, I was thinking about doing the same for my first two books. You said, 'I discovered what I like about author blogs is when the author talks about his/her life in the same theme of their books. I was wondering, how would I go about doing that for my books? There's only so much I could write about--personally--so maybe you might have some suggestions. Thanks."

I love it when people make my job easy. I went to her links and saw both were YA books, so both had the same general theme. You would think this would be a hard one, don't you? But, it's really not.

Years ago, I was writing for an online publication (that didn't pay no less) that published all kinds of articles with no real main theme. I decided to write about relationships, as that was what I was syndicating out at the time. I felt this was just another place to have my work showcased, so I felt what the heck, it can't hurt to have another place with my link in it, and continued to write for them.

After five or six articles on "soul mates," as this is what I write about, the webmaster emailed me and asked if I could write about something else. Truthfully, I didn't have the time and she caught me at one of those exasperating moments, so instead of searching through my files to find something else, I emailed her back and said, "Why?"

I didn't think it was a strange question. I really wanted to know what prompted her to tell me to write something out of my expertise so to speak. Did she not like what I was sending her?

She wrote back, "Because there's just so many things you can say about soul mates."

I've gone on to write hundreds of articles about soul mates and the website I was writing for? I quit writing for them simply because I thought that was the most stupid question anyone could ever ask me.

The point of my little story is that even though you have a certain "theme," there are so many ways you can write about it without it all sounding like the same old thing.

Let's shoot over to Celise's website to see the two books in question and I'll show you how I think she can handle this, keeping my little story in mind.

The first book is titled Secrets and Kisses (Geminimojo Press) and tells the story of Skylar Knight making her way through the final year of high school.

The second book is titled Dance Jam Productions (Geminimojo Press) and is about a local popular teen dance show looking for dancers.

Both are about teens, so it would seem that Celise would have a time trying to come up with two sets of blog posts with the same theme, wouldn't it?

But, really look good at these two books. There are underlying themes if you look close enough.

The first book is about young love, romance and that first kiss. The second book is centered around more of a dancing theme, although I'm sure it has elements of young romance in it.

What she could do with the first book, Secrets and Kisses, is talk about her first love, her first kiss, and all the things that happened to her during high school that kids would really get a kick out of. If they happened to visit her blog, they'd say, "Wow, she's like one of us!," now wouldn't they? They'd make that bond with her that they couldn't have otherwise. The blog will be excellent for that. She could even have one of the characters do a guest spot and have a little advice column if she ever ran out of ideas. Or, since "secrets" is part of the title, reveal some of her own little secrets when she was a teenager. I would love to have that blog; oh, what fun I could have with it!

The second book, Dance Jam Productions, is centered around a popular dance show. Maybe for this one she could talk about her own dance experiences. Or, how about talk about the lastest music videos, even posting a few on her blog from YouTube? How about--not to get too boring being as we're talking teenagers here--talk about different dances that have cropped up over the years? Or, she could do some interviews with dance choreographers or pop stars. She could even reminince about her pop star crushes over the years. The ideas are endless.

So, this is how you can take one theme and find underlying themes to talk about. So many ways you can do this. Just because you have two books of the same genre, you can surely find a way around it.

Hope this helps, Celise!

Tags: Blogging about Books, How to Pump UP Your Blog to Sell More Books, Celise Downs