135 - How to Market Your Book with Video: Tips From a Book/Author

You've finally published your book. Now, how do you get the news out there? Promote your book and YOU with video marketing. 

Recently, I sat down with my good friend, Gillian Whitney, who is also an author and book coach, to talk about using video marketing to create awareness, build trust, and promote their books without sounding overly salesy. We also talked about AI video tools, book launch ideas, and why imperfect videos often perform best. 

Top Takeaways
🔹Market the author and the book.
🔹“Why I wrote this book” videos build connection.
🔹Real beats overproduced when it comes to video.
🔹 AI tools can make book promotion more fun and creative.
🔹 It’s never too early — or too late — to create book-related videos.

Chapters

00:00 The Importance of Video Marketing for Authors
05:11 Creative Video Ideas for Book Promotion
09:57 Leveraging AI in Video Marketing
14:57 Engaging with Live Video for Book Launches
19:51 Building Trust Through Video Content

🔷If you're ready to stop thinking about video and start doing it, the next session of my Smarter, Faster, Fun Video Bootcamp starts on June 1st. Small group of 10. Real coaching. Real progress.  Join the Bootcamp here. 

OR visit BlackDogMarketingStrategies.com/SFF

 Join me in The Lab on Substack, my space to test, tweak, and share smart ideas worth chasing, especially around video, content strategy, and showing up online without burning out (or wasting your weekends) Click Here

📌 When you’re ready to make creating engaging social media videos a priority, I offer 1:1 coaching and done-with-you video services. 😉 Click Here

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➡️ Need more? Check out the 300+ videos on my YouTube channel Click here for my YouTube channel 

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For additional insights, connect with Annette Richmond and Black Dog Marketing Strategies on social media.
Substack: https://substack.com/@annetterichmond
LinkedIn: ...

Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00.45)
We decided to talk about video marketing for authors. And I love that topic. And we talked about a couple of ideas that I had that you had, but I want to actually have you start with that whole idea of the focus of the videos between the author and the book. So if you could just share that to start, that would be fabulous.

Absolutely. So the hardest part for people is once the book is out, it's not selling itself. So you have to take off your author hat and you have to put on your marketing hat. And video to me is the best way for people to get to know, like, and trust you and hopefully buy your book and do business with you. So this is really important. So the first thing that you want to do is you want to step back and you want to think about which way do I want to focus? Do I want to make a video?

that is talking about the author, me, or do I want to make a video that is focused on the book? And my thing is actually you should do both and have a mixture of both. But every time you sit down to do a video, think about, okay, in this video, what am I going to do? Because that will do everything. as Yanet and I have always talked about, one idea per video. So get that one idea first.

author or book.

Yeah, no, no, I love that. And, you know, one of the things that that I think about, and I actually recently had a coaching client who was working with me on how to promote her book. And so it was really interesting, the ideas. But, you know, there are the obvious ones like the unboxing of your book. And one thing that I will say, and I'm just going to throw this in there because the colleague I was working with, this is part of the reason we were working together is

Speaker 1 (01:52.546)
before you do the unboxing to blur out and block out your address on the box, because that was part of the struggle that you had that, my gosh, I'm unboxing. And then I'm looking at the video, there's my address. just that's the thing. And I think for both of us, the idea with video is not that you need to plan it for a month, but to plan ahead, what are you gonna do? So.

so that's my little throw in for, for unboxing because I think that's the most popular and the, what we all see any tips on unboxing.

make it real, make it real. It's like literally when the Amazon package, when the Amazon driver comes to the house and drops off the package, get the phone out, stick it up and make it real because we can tell if you've already unboxed and now you're going to go back and unbox it again. It's like, you're kind of like, it's perfectly put together. And it's like, we can tell. So, but let, let it be real. Let the

dogs be barking because that's what really happens and just say, my gosh, sit on the floor. Get your tripod, sit on the floor. You don't have to have a fancy setup. You can be holding it. It can be shaky cam. We're going to forgive you for the unboxing. So keep it as real as possible. And like you said, Annette, it's a good idea to, you know, maybe just

you know, hide your address, know, put a post it on it or a pen or something. Something. But you can also handle that in editing because you know, editing tools now you can, you know, I put blurs over things all the time.

Speaker 1 (03:35.892)
Yeah, but so the thing is that I will throw in there is yes, you can handle it. Other but make sure that you record the video that way so that you're not so the box is in one position and you're not moving it around because that's where you have the problem. That's where my client had the problem. Yes, we move around. Yes. So, so some, some of the things too are, you know, and I'll throw one out. That's the simplest thing is reading.

segment, a couple of lines or something from your book. But what what I mean, that's that's pretty, pretty basic. So what what other what other suggestions do you have?

recommend doing a why I wrote this book video. I think everybody should do that with their book. I think that's an awesome video for your launch day because you've got the unboxing, is kind of creating that pre-launch excitement. People are cheering you on. And the reason why we like unboxings is it's like, it's like the holidays. It's like Christmas and Hanukkah and everything all rolled into one. We like it. It's like your birthday. We all want to

jump in there and celebrate. But then when it comes to the day of your book launch, it can feel a little creepy to make a video that says, buy my book, you know? But if you do, it's hard, it's hard, you know, it's hard to put that salesman hat on. Marketing is different. So I think that if you do a video that's called, why I wrote this book, you talk about the reader, talk about the audience, because then people are automatically going,

I'm a coach or I'm nervous about video or whoever your target reader is that should come out in that video. But if you also talk about why you wrote the book, it usually is because you saw a problem and your book solved the problem, made the solution and your book is that bridge. And so if you can get that across in like a 90 second or two minute video,

Speaker 2 (05:37.57)
That's awesome. And you think about that, that can go up on social media, but it could also go on your website as well on your book page.

Yeah, no, I love that but I will say I would say stay to the 90 seconds or less because you know, I particularly if you're doing a talking head so you might want to if you're if you're talking about that, you might have some images of your book coming in as well because you know our Used to be what that we had the attention of goldfish and now it's like we have the attention of a gnat and so, you know, I find even with a a 30 second video or

You know that if it's not moving along quickly, you know talking heads. I can't really do that much anymore So so Tucker hi Tucker. Thanks for joining us. So pre and post processing edits I think if you do why I wrote the book you should make the title As little focus as possible. And yeah, I would say that I I agree with that. What about you Jillian?

Well, when I, I've done one for every single, I've done six books now I've done a, why I wrote this book for every single one. And literally I'm just talking, sitting on the couch or, know, you could be walking and talking, whatever. And I just have the book like slide in and it just kinda, you know, I did it in the editing. you know, but you could be just, you could show your book too, but I don't think it has to be too, too salesy.

You know that so let's let's show our books out. are our books self published. I'm so close to yours is not backwards. Mine is backwards.

Speaker 2 (07:12.29)
but it's not backwards for me. that's magic of video that it doesn't look right.

So, you know, so one of the things I'm talking about, and I agree where he says that people are thinking what's in it for me. And I know that when I did this book and I have a couple of others just in other areas that I did purposely put in a why I wrote the book in the book for people. But also, you know, I want to talk about AI, AI videos, because we both were both big AI fans.

And I know that we both use Sora. I did videos with Sora of, had the me teaching dogs how to do video. But what I think was really clever, what you did. And I also want to just throw this in before I throw it over to you is people are so, I can't use video for business or I can't use fun videos for business.

I have to have if my, if it's a business video, it's gotta be me like, yep, yep, yep, and on screen. And to be honest, nobody wants to watch a lot of that anyway. So talk a little bit about what you did, cause you did it to launch your book, to promote your book. And so I'm gonna throw it over to you and then we'll lament the sadness of Sora having gone away.

Yeah. So I hate sales. I hate being salesy and I hate the buy my stuff, buy my stuff. So I leaned into the AI videos with my last book launch and I love dachshunds. Like who cannot look at a dachshund and smile? So I went, okay, I want people to look at a dachshund smile and buy my book. It's like they're just going to go together. So I use Sora and I was able to type in, make me a video with a

Speaker 2 (09:05.282)
Doxen excited that it's book launch day. He sees it on the calendar. puts on a hat. He's blowing up balloons. He's running around. I was able to get my picture of my book and the Doxens got it on the table. Like it was fabulous and people loved it. They loved it. you know, did it sell the book? I don't know, but it created awareness. And that's really what you want to do because at the end of the day, your book has to be

the right book for the right audience at the right time. And it's, it's a lot, it's a numbers game. So all you want to do is just have something that gets it out there so that the right people can see it, find it. And if it calls to them, they'll buy it. If they don't, who doesn't love looking at a little Doxin video? It was fun. I love that.

Yeah, no, I love that. And one of the reasons I love video, we both love video, although I think I love it even more than you do. And one of the things that I love about it is that you can actually have fun with it. You can have fun with it. mean, I don't know that you have a lot of fun with a text post, maybe with a text post with an image, between you and me, I mean, don't tell anybody, Jillian, because nobody's gonna, if you're watching this video, don't tell anybody.

I am so, if I see another selfie, I'm telling you, sometimes I feel like I want to scream and there were people, it's like every post is just like,

And I just, can't stand it. I just can't stand it. So that's, that's a pet peeve for me, but, so hi Sue, thanks for joining. My friend Sue is here. so now we, you did that on Sora, right, which we loved. now Sora is gone. I think it was like a money thing where they were spending time, or they're spending too much money. was like not cost effective. think people weren't using, I don't know exactly what it was because

Speaker 2 (10:50.373)
So sad

Speaker 1 (11:03.36)
It seemed to be pretty much free. never, think you've never paid you. killed.

I killed Sora by not paying.

So now I have just started with Opus Agent. I mean, know we both use Opus Clip. And so that's their new sort of AI creating videos for you.

You said that you have not tried that yet, but I'm assuming you will be trying it.

know, I don't even know anything about it, to be honest with you. So you're the video, you're the video expert. I don't I don't know about Opus agent. So I yeah, I have Opus clips, but it's like, I don't know Opus agent at all. So I'm actually just looking for another AI. And I think see, is one I don't know.

Speaker 1 (12:00.376)
So you've got to go, because it's same company. It's just the same thing. It's just, it's their AI creation. And so, you know, do that. So Tucker's is, like using Pinterest to make fun posts, but I'm not good at making them. So, okay. Yes. Be the picture to life. Yes. TikTok does have that. So that might be an idea for a book author where you can go to TikTok. And I have seen that myself. I did one, think.

and you can upload your photo and TikTok will bring it to life. So you could do that. And even, I will say, and this is something that I did, and I'm assuming you could also do it with books. Maybe if you're using a CapCut template, because we both use CapCut, you could do different pictures of you reading your book, if you don't want to be on video and put those together. So.

What are your thoughts on that and other ideas?

think keep it fun. I think that's the main thing, keep it fun. You can be very serious and people will be like, and speak to the problems. Because if you think about it, your book is a gold mine of things that you can take away from it. And like you said, you can read from it or you can talk about a specific point. Maybe you talk about a case study.

And this is here's something that was in my book and you just talk about, know, I had this woman and she was doing blah, blah, blah. And off you go, you could be talking about it. So I think there's so many different things. You could also make GIFs because, you know, it's like, if you don't even want to make a whole video, a GIF is nothing more than a few frames. So you could do something and do some fun with that. So there's just a lot of things that you could do. I just think the more

Speaker 2 (13:58.402)
The more you can just make awareness for your book, the better, the better. you know, one of the fun things, I was using grok for a while. know everybody hates Twitter and we're on sub stack and we're talking about Twitter. It's like, you know, but

Okay, I haven't been on there in a long, time, but.

But I was using one of their tools, was called Grok. think I'd like over.

I've heard of that. I've heard about it that a lot of women are having problems because people were creating naked pictures of real women. Anyway, so tell us about the good side of Brock.

So I found if you put, if you uploaded a video, sorry, if you uploaded a photograph, it would make an eight second video for you. And of course, then if you stitch a couple of eight second videos, you've got videos. And I did that for the one year anniversary of my book because I was, I had a coauthor, she lives in Estonia, Tina Jarvett.

Speaker 2 (14:57.864)
And she lives in Estonia and we were like, okay, how could we like do something? So I put in pictures of her and me and I said, I'd like to see us like hugging and dancing and cheer. And we were wearing cowboy hats. were dancing. We hopped out of the zoom screen and hugged each other. Like that's the kind of thing that AI can do, which to me is brilliant. And then we had like this little kitten that

I remember that, yeah.

Speaker 2 (15:25.058)
took the stage and talked about our book about, you know, now I can do public speaking, but it was a kitten instead of a person. So you could just, the limit is your imagination, truly.

Yes, yes, it truly is your imagination. So one of the things that we talked about, we talked about you making the videos for your your book launch. But one of the things that we've we've both done, I believe we've done them for each other, our book launch lives. Now, I'm not a huge fan of of lives on LinkedIn because they just don't seem to have the engagement that they used to and

Hence we're over here on Substack, but this might be a perfect place, a perfect platform to get on with someone hosts alive. did this last one that I did with you was the launch of your book and we did it together and we got on and we talked about the book and people came, came and joined us and talked about the book. And the thing about that is you can create clips of it later and use those to promote your book because obviously people aren't going to want to watch like a 30 minute, you know, video.

Absolutely. And I love lives. I've leaned into lives. You can do them on YouTube. can do them on LinkedIn. This is my first time ever doing it on Substack. So we're always learning and doing new stuff. But the reasons why I think lives are so good on book launch day is because, and especially if you can get a buddy to do it with you, then it kind of takes that like, I've done my own.

We had a real party vibe going, so that was fun.

Speaker 2 (17:06.574)
It's it's fun. It's celebratory and people want to come and cheer you on it's that unboxing mentality It's like you're unboxing your book coming out into the world on launch day It's like you're drawing open the curtains and saying ta-da here it is But it's especially good if you decide that you're going to have some sort of promotion to launch your book so if you say

Like I recommend I know recommend free I used to recommend free, know do your book for free on the first day I don't do that anymore because I find that if people get something for free They don't value it and they don't write reviews and they probably won't even read it. You know, it's like how many yeah They get it and then it gets locked in the drawer of your Kindle like you'll never see the light of day one time I actually went I didn't even know I had that It's any attention but

I just get it.

Speaker 1 (17:57.279)
I know, I know, I know.

If it's 99 cents and you say today only or on launch weekend or you know what, however long you want to do it, then people, have this fear of missing out FOMO. And so people come to these launch events because they think, wow, know, maybe, maybe something's, you know, exciting is going to happen. Maybe there's going to be book deals. Maybe you're going to give away a copy. I've had people where I've done lunch launch lives.

book launch lives and they've given away a free copy of the book and we've done that, mailed it to them and that sort of thing. So it's a great way to have goodwill that like, wow, I'm giving you guys all a deal and tell your friends.

Yes. Yes. So Sue, Sue says, okay, buddies, I'll be back in touch when I'm ready to launch. Well, Sue, we got your back. We got your back, girlfriend, because we love you and we are happy to celebrate the launch of your book. by the way, we're waiting, you know, we're waiting. you better get on that girl. Okay. Okay. So, I know I cannot resist. So the thing is,

for what is something that you tell a little secret that you tell your clients? Because I don't work with book authors. I have self-published multiple times. You have done that as well. But now obviously you have your company. And one of the things that I always say is, I've been doing this for years, but if you're a new author, you don't know what you don't know.

Speaker 1 (19:38.86)
And that is the biggest thing I think with anything, you don't know what you don't know. So if you're a newbie, do get some help, but give us a tip for a video. Something we haven't mentioned that maybe you just kind of secretly share with your clients.

never too early and it's never too late. So that's what I would share that it's like, everybody thinks about the unboxing and the book launch that we're thinking like one week. Yeah, you're making video. But the thing is, is that you can be starting videos as you're writing the book, you know, I'd at least kind of get your rough draft out because you don't want to go, I never wrote that book. And I did all those videos. you're to kind of feel like

could I bring those back? I don't really want those out in the world. But if you've got the rough draft, you're probably pretty darn committed now. You could be doing videos now. It's like, hey, I just got off a call with my book launch coach and not my book launch coach, but my editor. And this is what we talked about today. And I'm so excited. Or I'm talking to the guy today that did my cover.

Here's the three covers that we're looking at. know, there's, it's never too early to start dripping. Even if you just have a video and it's like you have your, your, your cell phone, you know, and you're just like you writing, you typing.

No, I love that and even even if it's little tidbits about I'm writing my book and here's what I learned today I learned that when I'm looking at a blank page that maybe I can just put on zoom or Record something on my phone and just record the you record my message So it could be that and I I like the idea that you never you that it's

Speaker 1 (21:30.646)
like kind of ordinary, ordinary. What I'm a big fan of is documenting. So ordinary things make interesting videos. And as you're learning things and sharing them with other people, I think we all get sucked into the idea that I don't know enough about this, or I don't know enough about that. But if you're, you know, if it, think it's a great idea, like even I'm coming up with this idea for my book and blah, blah, blah. And I'm going to start working on it or.

wow, I got three chapters down or there's so many things that you can do and even create. I'm thinking a series.

Yes, and just and just keep going. Just keep going with that. So it's never too early. And just like it's never too late. You know, I know some people that'll just like, all of a sudden, I see their comment. And they're like, I did a book a couple years ago. And it's just like, Okay, tell us about it. Let's remind us about it. It doesn't have to be that like, I did my book last month. It's like you could have done your book two years ago. Go ahead.

keep talking to us about it. Just say, hey, we're on the fourth year anniversary of my book and people, don't know that you, maybe those people didn't know you four years ago. So it's like, up the book, talk about what your book is. And you know, if you're changing your book, that's a marketing opportunity too. Cause you might say, Hey, I wrote this book 10 years ago.

And I'm in the process now of making it up to date because a lot of stuff has changed. AI didn't exist and I'm adding in a whole section about that. Get on podcasts now. You know, you don't have to wait. You know, you can do it anytime. So the rules are there's no rules.

Speaker 1 (23:15.756)
Yeah, yeah. So I just, we're getting up on our 30 minute mark because see, I times always fly so much when we're chatting with each other. But I want to kind of circle back to what you said in the very beginning, the idea of building the trust and people are more likely, I'm more likely to buy a book of someone I know. Yes. Particularly if I'm, if I'm not in the market at the moment, but I see someone that I

that I don't know, but I see them on video talking about their book. And I think, that sounds like maybe it's kind of interesting. So maybe I'll go and check it out. And I think that's the one thing. I heard somebody recently, and I talked about this on my recent solo podcast, the idea that with video that, if it's hard for you to do video, then just don't do video. it makes me kind of crazy because I feel that, you know,

while you're not doing it, other people are doing it. And so you are losing ground to them. So that's kind of like one of my last thoughts. So Sue, yes, okay, start dripping that content. We're gonna be watching for it. So Jillian, before we close out here, before we say goodbye, any final thought that you wanna throw out there?

If you're not comfortable making videos, at least repurpose the videos that you've done with other people. So if you're on lives or you're a podcast guest or you're a podcast host or whatever, if you did media appearances, you're on the morning show talking about your book or something like that, it's like repurpose those little clips because sometimes

We feel uncomfortable turning on the camera. And if that's you go work with the net so that you get over it. Cause your first video is your worst video. And from there on in, it gets better. It gets better. And so, you know, you just have to get over yourself. And the one thing that I, you know, I don't like the way I look. I don't like the way I sound, but I do it anyways, because you have to believe that somebody needs your book. And if you are not the ambassador,

Speaker 2 (25:32.608)
out there talking about it, then you are, you're hurting your book, but you're hurting anybody who could benefit from reading that book.

Yes. And I say that, I say that about video in general. There's somebody out there could benefit from listening to your message. And you know, I don't like the way I look and sound or anything either, but the thing is too, and I hope you will back me up with this. Once you get used to doing it, you just get out your head and you get over it. don't even really see me in the videos I do anymore.

And if you're more focused, if you're more focused on the other person who's receiving the video, that takes the onus off you. And you know what? They're not really looking at you. They're really not your message. Nobody is sitting there saying, at that hair, that outfit. Why isn't she wearing lipstick? Nobody cares. Nobody cares. We just...

do ourself a disservice thinking that people are putting us under the microscope. They might not even notice. It's like, she had curly hair. I didn't even notice. I was listening to what she was talking about. And that's the important thing. What's your message?

Yes, yes, one message to one person. So thanks so much for all the people that joined us. We will be putting this up on Substack as soon as it finishes processing. So thanks so much, Jillian, my friend for being here with me. I love you, girlfriend. Thanks to everybody who joined us and saying goodbye for now.