Social Media

Here’s another great use for Social Media as an author: Read a portion of your chapter and post it to YouTube.

Film it with a digital camera like a Flip Video. They make it very easy to post the video to their website.  It will take you less than a couple of minutes once you’ve made the recording. It works well if you make sure you are reading from the book, rather than looking like you’re reading from a teleprompter.

A lot of my authors ask if they can’t have the copy of the book on the video, but not appear on the video themselves. The answer is since you want to create a relationship with your potential book buyers, the best way is to let them see you and how you engage with your own words. They will engage with you much better seeing you.

The video needs to be less than five minutes to be YouTube post-able. You might explain a bit about the chapter first, then go into a five minute segment. What works best is to do a recording each week and post a copy to your blog. It will give your blog much higher rankings.

The main thing is to generate a buzz about your book and keep them coming back for more!

Owning Your Story

Many years ago I was watching the Johnny Carson Show and saw Charlie Sheen on the show. He admitted to stealing hubcaps in New York when he was a kid.

I thought, “Who! If he can admit that on National TV, why can’t I be okay talking about my life?”

The fact is, as an author, our life stories are what make our story telling abilities shine. Telling someone else’s story is not nearly as impactful. When you talk about your life experiences, people relate to you and will respond to you personally because of your passion about your story.

I went to a speaker’s training event in Denver a few years back, it was $3,000 and the only thing I got out of the entire event was to write out each of my stories, shorten them to a 5 minute segment and eliminate all the extra words and make sure than every 30-60 seconds there was a point which would cause the audience to respond in some emotional reaction.

It took me about six months to generate the 77 stories that have been impactful experiences in my life. I massaged the stories, read them out loud, recorded them and memorized them to the point they seem unrehearsed.

I can now pull from my story list and create an original speaking presentation and use the concept of the story to become either motivational, inspirational or thought provoking.

It’s all in the story telling techniques.