Guest Post by Alison Laverty
Every wonder how using videos can help you build your Author Platform? What is an author platform? It is a space where you can actively and consistently share ideas, tell stories, read passages from your book to an audience and retain their attention.
In other words, you use your abilities openly by creating new and regular content for your readers, while engaging in conversations to form a relationship. Why do you need to do this?
Let's consider this thought for a second.
How can you sell more books if no one knows who you are?
The answer to this question is simple. Step up and reveal who you are and what you are sharing in the social arena so readers can identify you as an individual author and connect with you as a person.
Don't follow the crowd by doing what others are already doing. Be different, be you! Readers want to be part of your success story. They want to be able to say they knew you before you became the next big thing. By creating this connection with them, somehow, they will help influence and spread the word of your story. In this way, they are naturally invested in your journey.
In this post, I share two ways to build your strategy around using videos. This will speedily help you grow your author platform. Are you ready to visualize the future? Let's see how using videos can lead you or your readers on a journey of discovery.
Story Creation Using Video
When Music Television or MTV for short, came out in the early 80s, it instantly caught my attention. I watched my favorite band, The Go-Go's perform live on a screen. See, I lived in Singapore and they were in USA. Wow! That was four decades ago and video is still as significant today as it was back then.
MTV became a platform where musicians used a combination of skills, to create a story video to exchange experiences that connected their music to their fans. Musicians told meaningful stories in their videos as they sang their new songs, and people like you and I got excited with new album releases. Remember Duran Duran or Culture Club, they were some of the leaders of the pack.
Hey wait a second, MTV is a platform for musicians? Perhaps there is something we can learn from history here. They entertained their fans who kept wanting to see more of their live concerts. Why? Because like everyone else, we all want to experience something out of the ordinary.
Fast forward to this present moment. We are now living in this digital age where our mobiles phones rule for using video for live-stream broadcast and online content creation. Our constant need for information has pushed us beyond the boundaries and into a world in need of attention. We have the ability to experience, explore and communicate with the speed of light.
Can you see the endless opportunities where you can build your author platform using video?
Your Author Platform YouTube Channel TV
Building an author platform simply means finding and creating a space where you can be seen. With the advent of the world wide web, you now have the opportunity to expend your horizons.
Here are two specific strategies that will propel you to be seen, to be heard anywhere in the world.
1. Consistently Creating Content
When regular content is created using video, you train your readers to follow your routine and they become part of your emotional journey. New regular content will create a habit with them, and they will keep coming back to look for you. Whether you are a blogger or you guest blog, your posts are an extension of your video scripts. Learn to summarize the main points. The only thing you need to do is convince yourself that you are a live speaker, entertaining your faithful readers.
2. Making a Connection
Every time you get the opportunity to engage and communicate with your readers, a relationship is formed. Social media is all about research and finding out where your readers hang out. They remember you because you took the time to reply to their questions or messages.
If you strategically use your skills and experiences to consistently create regular video content, you slowly begin to attract and gather your tribe. Then you can share stories about your books.
Be Seen … Be Heard
When readers see you often, they begin to trust you and connect with you as an author.
Don't get confused to think you can only film a book trailer video. Believe me, you have only scratched the surface because there is a lot more content creation you can film using videos. Creating meaningful content is endless.
Whether you write fiction or creative non-fiction, you can always let readers into your world of adventure. Here are some video ideas to consider:
Book trailer video
Story creation video
Behind the scenes
The theme behind your story
Sharing the research of your story
Meet the characters
A day in the life of an author
Places you mentioned in your story
When you intentionally create content that entertains or benefits readers, even if it is to help them solve a problem, you maintain their attention and they come back, looking for more.
Now, I hear you! I can’t see myself on videos because I don’t know what to say. I know what it feels like to be put on the spot. I am exactly like that and I have learned that practice makes perfect. I spent countless hours filming myself and watching my mistakes until I got used to seeing me as a whole person.
Be patient with yourself and learn acceptance.
What are You Selling to Readers?
Why would readers invest to buy your books, or spend hours reading it?
Every day, we get up and go through the motions of a mundane ordinary life, following the same routine. I know I do with my young children. Even they love the thrill of an adventure. We dream of living another person's life because in our mind we see their excitement and joy. We crave to experience the extraordinary and out-of-this-world lifestyle.
Just for a second, imagine how much you could gain if you would only consider using video to share a kind of emotional journey where readers get to walk with you, in a vision where they can sense a kind of inspiration to believe in the impossible.
How are you using videos to capture the hearts of your readers?
Alison Laverty is the writer of her debut memoir, Meant to Be. A Singapore Eurasian who lives in Brisbane, Queensland Australia with her husband, two children and their cat. She is a video creator who runs her family business. She has a Bachelors Degree in Business specializing in Marketing from Queensland University of Technology in Australia.
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