Add Videos to Your Book Launch Campaign

by Julie Lavender @JLavenderWrites

When it came time to create a book launch campaign about a year ago for my upcoming book, 365 Ways to Love Your Child: Turning Little Moments into Lasting Memories, published by Revell, I recalled several faculty members of recent conferences, namely Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference and Florida Christian Writers Conference, touting the popularity of videos on social media. 

“Engage followers with brief videos,” they said, “and give them some great content.”

I loved the idea of videos, but I didn’t love the idea of videos of ME. So, the next-best-thing—the most-wonderful-idea-instead—was to include videos of others on my social media pages.

Several months before my book launched, I sent out emails and Facebook messages to various friends and author friends with an announcement about my book and a request to submit a video to me of one way they show/showed love to a child. I asked for brief videos, one to three minutes or even less than a minute. I also asked the contributor to share with me a bio and any links they’d like to share. 

I specifically reached out to many of my writer friends, because I know the value of supporting other writers and their projects. Once I collected a handful of videos for my files, I initiated the campaign. 

I chose to post three videos per week on my social media pages, with a brief intro. In the comments of each social media post, I shared the contributor’s bio and whatever information they wanted me to share, which might be: a link to their website, a link to their blog, links to their books, links to their non-profit, or information about their business.

I enjoyed supporting my friends’ writing efforts and touting their current projects or new releases. I consider the video posts a win-win for several reasons. I’ve gained followers who became part of my target audience, drawing them to my sites that show my book cover on the wall. I shared others’ creative, unique ideas to show love to a child. And I helped my friends market their writings or boost their careers. Many of those who contributed a video would then share my post on their social media pages, which helped spread the word about my book even more.

My campaign cost practically nothing financially. I spent time reaching out to video contributors for requests, but the return on my time investment feels like a huge success to me. My numbers have grown on social media; I engage consistently with those who comment; I’ve supported my writing friends simultaneously while they bless my followers with unique ideas for loving their children, and I’ve continued to “soft-sell” my book inadvertently with mentions that accompany the posts. Most of the time, the contributors don’t even mention my book, as per my instruction, though I sometimes add a comment such as, “My writing friend has a great suggestion for showing love to a child to help me continue the launch of my book, 365 Ways to Love Your Child: Turning Little Moments into Lasting Memories.”

The goal of my campaign was three-fold: 

1) To establish awareness of and create excitement for my book, 365 Ways to Love Your Child: Turning Little Moments

2) To build a community of potential target audience members of 365 Ways and to engage and interact with that community regularly, encouraging them to make family memories along the way

3) To support fellow authors, professionals, and others by including them in my campaign 

I firmly believe it takes a village to launch a book, and I’ve really enjoyed building and supporting that village over the course of the last year with the more than 130 videos I’ve posted on my social media. With the help of friends, mostly fellow writers, I feel like my video campaign met and exceeded all three of my goals. 

Each time I attend a writers conference, I learn a wealth of valuable tips and info about writing and marketing. Putting the video suggestion into action turned into a grand adventure. I can’t wait to see what I learn at this year’s conferences! I look forward to seeing you there!

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Julie Lavender would love to connect with you on social media or at julielavenderwrites.com. She invites you to enjoy her friends’ videos about showing love to a child on her personal Facebook page or the Facebook group page, 365 Ways to Love Your Child. “Just click on the videos tab and find some unique ways to show love to a child or grandchild,” Julie says. “And, I’m always looking for new videos, too, if you want to join my ‘village.’ Oh, and look for me at Blue Ridge in just a couple of weeks! Can’t wait to see you there!”