YouTube Publishing Videos

I finally paid for YouTube Premium, because I love YouTube, but I hate commercials. And thus, I watch a lot of videos. YouTube is better than most apps for suggesting things a person might actually be interested in. That's mostly good, but if I happen to click on a few minutes of, for example, something about Breaking Bad, I'm suddenly inundated with Bryan Cranston videos. I'm not a big enough fan to immerse myself in Cranston trivia.

Of course, I've viewed my share of self-publishing-related videos, my most recent topic of interest being marketing. Last night I was presented with one that was titled something like, "My Top Thirty-Five Book Marketing Strategies" (except it was spelled as "stratagies" - oops). I thought, cool, all I ever hear or read, ad nauseum, are the same rehashed ideas that really don't work.  Unfortunately, it turned out that the writer had jotted a bunch of brainstormed notes in a journal one day, and now she was ready to read them to us. Even she was stumped by some of the ideas she'd scribbled. If her writing is as haphazard as her presentation, I'd be wary of reading her work.

It's not that her ideas were necessarily bad, but they weren't original, and they weren't thought out. She brought up things such as, "why I wrote the book" and "stories behind the characters". Fine, but where is she publicizing those things, other than on the video itself? I'm assuming she's talking about including them in her newsletter, except she doesn't say that, and again, that's hardly an original idea. Maybe she'll jot them down on the next page in her journal. 🙄 By the time she got to, "I don't remember why I wrote that down", I clicked off.

Another video was from a guy who has something like twenty years of professional marketing experience. His video was titled,  "1 Book Marketing Tactic Every Author Can Do". Once again, I was excited. Here's the secret, at last! I suppose I should have noticed the word "can" in the title. His advice? Give away thousands of copies of your book. Not tens of copies or even hundreds of copies, but thousands. Word of mouth, baby! Everyone will be telling their friends and acquaintances about your book! He even suggested mailing them out. Um, this isn't the nineteen sixties, plus does he know how much this would cost? Know what people do with free books? They don't read them. Ask any self-published author how much his free book offering boosted his career. 

I think for some, creating a video is enticing. After all, videos can be monetized, and a little extra income is always welcome. But, wow, there is a lot of really bad advice out there. There are worthwhile series, of course. Bookfox is enjoyable, despite the fact that the host leans toward trade publishing. His videos are brief and entertaining, and really well done. You can't go wrong with David Gaughran. He is the actual book marketing expert. Not everything he espouses can work or has worked for me, but that's true of everything, isn't it?

As for now, I'm looking forward to whatever video YouTube presents to me next. I can always use a laugh.