30 Days with King David on Leadership Can’t wait for the book? Well, here’s the movie!
Video sells.
It helps sell just about everything. According to Usability Geek:
Video content is increasingly becoming an essential component of every marketing strategy. Not only does it appear in 70% of the top 100 search engine listings (according to KissMetrics), it can also make site visitors 144% more likely to purchase products after seeing it in video, as a report by houseware e-tailer Stacks & Stacks has shown.
Video sells books.
It just makes sense. Potential book buyers like video because it helps to explain what the book is about before they purchase it. Videos also introduce them to the author and make them more relatable and therefore someone a reader would like to spend time with and invest in.
It’s easy.
Making a video does not have to be overly complicated. I used the online video maker, Lumen5 to create the Thirty Days With King David promotional video you can see in the screen above. This new book also is featured in this week’s ReadtheSpirit.com cover story.
Lumen5 has a free program or 4 subscription programs with more content and additional services that you can pay for, if you need additional services, make lots of videos each month, or need additional support. I used the free version for this video. Lumen5 uses AI technology to take your existing content, a blog post or posting, to storyboard a video for you. You can keep what they suggest or start over from scratch. I usually find it easier to start over from scratch.
To create the King David promotional video I started by uploading the book’s cover art and the author photos from my computer. I then searched Lumen5’s media library for photos of King David. I used the long description from the book’s metadata (the descriptions that will appear in online bookstore pages at Amazon and other retailers) to come up with the script for the video.
I created scenes and sub-scenes using that script to create the video. Once I was happy with the script and the length of the video, I added photos from Lumen5’s media library. I supplemented the Lumen5 media library with photos from the public domain or from sites that only require that the photographer be cited for credit, such as Wikimedia Commons. Make sure, when selecting photos, that you are aware of the rules for citing and crediting the original sources. Lumen5 facilitates this citing in their program.
Lumen5 has an extensive music library, I can usually find one that is appropriate for my use. You can also upload additional music; again making sure that you are aware of the rules for sharing it publicly.
How long is ideal?
Different social media sites have different limits on the lengths of videos. Learn the guidelines and adjust your video depending on where you intend to post it.
- Videos can be up to .
- No limit, but or less is a good target.
- Limit is , but – videos are recommended by Hubspot.
- Up to , but online consensus says: Shorter is better.
Once I have the script and the music arranged the way that I want it, I watch each screen carefully to make sure that I’ve given the reader enough time to read the text, but not so much that they fall asleep. I then share the video with my colleagues and the author for their feedback. Another set of eyes always sees things I might not notice because I have seen the video so many times. I highly recommend getting a second opinion of the video before publishing.
Once I have the script and the music arranged the way that I want it, I watch each screen carefully to make sure that I’ve given the reader enough time to read the text, but not so much that they fall asleep. I then share the video with my colleagues and the author for their feedback. Another set of eyes always sees things I might not notice because I have seen the video so many times. I highly recommend getting a second opinion of the video before publishing.
When the video is finished you can download it to your computer and then upload it to your social media. Our videos are all posted on the Front Edge Publishing YouTube channel. They are also used to promote the book on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Video is here to stay. Jump in the water is fine.