These days any writer knows (or should know) that it takes a lot more than just a well written, complete manuscript to get published. You need to be a salesman, and develop self-marketing skills to sell your story to an agent. If you do this well, these efforts can assist your agent in selling your story to a publisher, then to your vast audience. So what should you do? Everything you can, anything that gets you and your writing exposure. Do you tweet, do you blog? Do you Youtube?
Building a Youtube channel (page) can be beneficial in many ways. First and most obviously is getting viewed on Youtube. It gets your name and your book's out there in the public's eye. If you have your own web-site, (and you should) it can turn viewers into readers by advertising your site on your Youtube page and on the videos themselves. You can also have the videos available on your site but have them hosted on Youtube. The methods for embedding them vary, depending on the software you are using for your site. Below is an example of one of my Youtube hosted videos. Feel free to click on the image* to view the video. Or visit my site here > http://becomingjohnnynova.com/johnnys-theater *Hit F5 on your keyboard if the image does not show [SA]
What videos you ask? Anything that suits the style of your writing. It's all up to your imagination. Fortunately for you, you are a writer and imagination comes with the territory, but perhaps I can get you started.
Simply shooting a video of yourself reading a couple of passages from your book can be effective. If romance is your thing, grab your video camera, (you can even use your web-cam) light the fire, and grab your manuscript. Writing Sci-fi? Boldly go to the space museum and talk your way into a few minutes in front of an appropriate display. Have a friend film you as you talk about the inspiration for your story. More ambitious than that? Get really creative and act out a segment from your humorous novella. Two or three videos will suit, but if you've got a lot to put out there, go to town with it!
If your videos are simple you can go ahead and upload your masterpiece as is. However some editing can add a lot of flair. For example, if you're doing a clip talking about your inspirations or the background of your story, you can try having your camera man change angles. That will give you that multi-camera investigative reporter look. Editing can help smooth out the bumps and perfect the timing. A simple yet efficient editing suite comes with Windows. Windows Movie Maker, pictured on the right, has an easy to use interface. With it you can add effects, trim your clips, add clips together, and add narration, screen swipes, stills and more.
The side menu will show you your options for each step and guide you through the whole process. Start by importing or capturing your clips into the application. Both these options are found on the side menu and will use the common file navigation that every Windows user will be familiar with. Once your clips are in the library, drag them down to the timeline, where you can trim your clips and add in stills, transitions and titles. The viewer on the right side allows you to preview your work in progress.
Adding transitions and effects, such as B&W or an 'aged' effect is easy to do. Expand the Edit Movie options by clicking on the down arrow and select video transitions (shown) or video effects. They both work in a similar fashion. Simply slide the blue selector bar along the timeline to where you want to add the transition. Then drag your selected transition down to it. For an overlay effect, you just drop the effect onto the clip that you want to apply the overlay to.
Adding opening and⁄or closing credits will give your clips a more polished look and they are a great place to further promote yourself or your book's title with text. It's also a great spot to insert your web-site address. Don't forget, a lot of web users only read what they have to. Having any text in the video itself will increase your chances of it being read and REMEMBERED! To add either of them start on the side menu and select Make Titles or Credits. You'll be given a choice of opening or closing credits, plus a couple of other options. Once selected you'll be given the screen shown below. Here you can select how they are shown. [Sliding in from the side, scrolling down, etc]. Type in your text then you can preview it in action on the right. When you're satisfied, save your entire clip to your hard drive by selecting that option from the last step on the side menu. If you set up your Video hosting ahead of time there is an option to send it straight there. A good idea is to save your clip as a project for any future re-editing you might want to do.
Now you're ready to Youtube! If you have a Google account, you're nearly there. Your Google account can be used as your same account for Youtube, but you will have a few things to set up.
Don't have one?
It's a simple sign up process. Search for Youtube and navigate to the main page. Click sign up and you're on your way. The top of the form is where you will put your Youtube name. Take a moment to come up with a name that will be easy for others to remember and something that will represent you well. [User names are not allowed spaces, so try capitalizing each word]. There are a lot of users and your first choice (or second) might already be taken. I'm using theUnknownAuthor1 for this example, as theUnknownAuthor was taken. These variables are not a great idea as people will not always remember to add the 1 and will end up on someone else's channel! For our demo though, it will do fine.
After sign up you'll need to go to your e-mail program and verify your account. Just click on the link there and it will take you to the Youtube home page. On the top right corner click the down arrow next to your new user name and click on “My Channel”. That will take you to your brand new Youtube Channel.
This will be the center of all your activity. If you're familiar with Facebook, you'll soon get used to this. Here you can have your picture or logo, there is a brief of your profile and your viewers will be able to see all your recent activity. This is also where you will see your subscribers. People who subscribe to your page will get e-mail notifications when you upload new videos. You'll also see your subscriptions, your list of friends, and comments on your videos. This is where you will do your Youtube social networking. See anything you don't like? Not to worry, all these boxes (called modules) are switchable and can be reorganized anyway you like.
At the top of your channel you'll see a menu bar. This controls almost everything on your channel and you can come back at any time to change these. Click on the setting tab and it will expand to give you a number of options. Here you have the full URL to your channel. Give your Channel a more readable name here. This will be the name displayed at the top of your channel. The other options can be left as is, but you will want to add some channel tags. Your tags are what you imagine people who would be interested in your clips would be searching for i.e. the words they would type into the search box. Don't throw everything under the sun in here. You want terms that are relevant to you and your channel. Our example author has written a book about baseball entitled, The Great Athlete. Search phrases [more than one word] should have quotes around them and all the tags should be separated with a space. Have a look at our guy's tags to give yourself an idea of how this works.
Next click on the Themes and Colors tab. In the drop down selections you'll find everything you need to give it just the look you want. Selecting a theme will give you a head start or you may like the theme just the way it is. You can also upload a background image here. Use the same one from your web site if you have one.
Next step is selecting the modules you would like to use. The default ones are usually fine, but you might want to add in the “Other Channels” box. In order to draw viewers to your channel, you want to come up high in the search results. The more Youtube channel subscribers you have, as well as the number of views, and some other factors, is how your Channel will rank. Subscribing to other similar channels, showing links to other channels on yours, and commenting on videos you like are just a few ways to get your networking started. Youtube also has a message system where you can communicate with other users and exchange ideas with them.
The Videos and Playlists options are for the most part self explanatory. You'll have to have some clips uploaded to do anything here. The featured video option will be the video that will be already loaded when viewers come to you channel.
Now our channel is looking pretty good. You'll see that our unknown author has added Struggling Authors and Johnny Nova's channels to his other channels section. It would be great for all us struggling authors to support each other and provide links to each other in this way.
One last bit of customizing you will probably want to do is change the androgynous silhouette with a nice profile picture. I chose to use the logo that I came up with for my web site. You could even use the cover of your book or a still from one of your clips. Access this page from the very top again. Click the down arrow next to your user name, and this time click on Account. From here you can manage everything to do with your Youtube account. To add a profile image, click Profile Setup, which will take you to the page seen here. Changing the picture is straight forward, and keep in mind that this image will show in lots of different places throughout the Youtube site. On this page you can also add your web-site URL.
Now that you've got everything set up, it's time to upload. The upload link is on every page once you are signed in. Simply click it and here we are. You can select clips from your files, and you can even record a clip straight from your web-cam. You'll see here that there is easy access to the major networking sites, and you can set up automatic feeds and notifications from here.
Once you're done, it's time to make a few contacts. Send some friend requests, visit similar pages and subscribe to them. Most will return the favour, as I always do. To get you started I've posted links to the Struggling Authors' Channel as well as mine. Drop by and have a look.
That's about all you need to get started. Youtube is a modern, user-friendly, well designed site that makes it easy for beginners to get started. The help section is huge and easy to navigate. It contains lots of clips and articles on how to create better clips, how to get more views, and lots more. There is also plenty of technical know-how info there. If you'd like to see some examples of Youtube channels use the links at the bottom. If you're interested in building an author's web-site you can visit mine for some ideas. While your there, I'd appreciate if you sign my Petition (guestbook) If your interested in having a link to your site on my links page, or have any questions e-mail me through my Contact Me page.