1. Not the Territory

    Not the Territory Contributor Contributor Contest Winner 2023

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    Youtube Platform for Marketing

    Discussion in 'Marketing' started by Not the Territory, May 19, 2022.

    How do you think a book review (or adjacent) channel would fare as an advertisement vector?
    • I suspect the time, energy, and equipment required for consistent quality output in order to *maybe* gain a small following could be easily outmatched by money spent on something like Amazon ads. I haven't seriously researched it, but a startup price of 1-2k is my not-even-napkin guess, then combine that with part-time job hours.
    • A handful of youtubers have successfully marketed their (sometimes even subpar) books this way.
    • The Youtube platform tends to have a longer-form appeal compared to TikTok, Twitter, or Facebook. The latter three just aren't for me.
    • It's harder than ever to carve out an audience slice on Youtube. Prime chance was probably 5-10 years ago. That said, exposure in general is harder than ever.
    • Blogs may have worked once upon a time, and as a bonus would appeal more to readers than viewers, but I just don't think traffic is driven that way anymore.
    Wisdom, thoughts?
     
  2. Bruce Johnson

    Bruce Johnson Contributor Contributor Contest Winner 2023

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    My thoughts: probably not much, unless you are only reviewing your book(s) and then it's self promotion and going to be biased.

    As for having something adjacent, I still doubt that would fare well, unless the book advertised was closely related (like if you had a channel devoted to say Sci-Fi world building then maybe promoting your Sci-Fi book might be worth it).

    I've been to several good YouTube channels on writing advice and never considered buying the creator's unrelated books. I did go to some websites to check out their short stories though.
     
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  3. pyroglyphian

    pyroglyphian Word Painter

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    Alas, no wisdom. Just Tuesday Thoughts:
    You could be right, however, increasingly an issue with paid promotion is that as soon as you turn the money tap off, your exposure drops to zero. With a following built organically, you're more likely to benefit from an algorithmic momentum which will see you through periods of lower input. For this reason, and others, marketers often favour a mix of paid and organic initiatives.

    What works for one may not work for another. Any marketing plan you construct would need to reflect your specific circumstance.

    I understand this POV, however, if I may, the question is not so much whether they are for you, but whether they are for the audience you wish to reach.

    This is not so in my experience. The formula for commercial success hasn't changed greatly in the last 5000 years: create value.

    All the best.
     
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  4. Joe_Hall

    Joe_Hall I drink Scotch and I write things

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    Most of the successful ones had their YouTube presence and then wrote their books. Some authors like Brandon Sanderson make their YouTube after they become famous...but the chances that you create a channel to self-promote a book and it is going to catch the algorithm right to attract viewers and those viewers are going to stick around while you tell about how good your book is...unlikely. I would find other ways to promote that would be a better bang for the buck.
     
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  5. evild4ve

    evild4ve Critique is stranger than fiction Supporter Contributor

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    Channels saturate, their costs rise, and they get less effective for new advertisers
    New advertisers wish they could create new channels that work like before but which they can afford to get into
    But if they actually do it, they find the channel is even harder to sell than their product

    I don't know if that has a technical term, but it's something that I've seen small marketing teams to invariably fall into
    In YouTube's case, I think even the term social media is misleading now. It's fundamentally similar to how TV used to be, but with the little advertisers also having to produce the shows
    In the old days we could produce a 30-second video and stick it to someone's 30-minutes of content - it cost a fortune but it was more democratic than making us have to direct Ben Hur, or stage the SuperBowl, or dunk ourselves in dry ice etc
    And Ben Hur and repeats of the Superbowl are still out there: stealing eyeballs from the system like square-jawed, coiffured ghouls

    With self-published books, the undertaking is so insane on the face of it that planning the marketing is a Catch-22. Anyone who rationally applied marketing logic to a self-published book would open a shoe shop instead
    But there are always outliers and it's always tempting. So I'd suggest to spend the 2k, read the content out one chapter at a time, and if it happens to get any viewers then deciding how to monetize them is the easy part
     
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