New Media and New Marketing XIII

I had an interesting weekend. Did you? Spring is now upon us in all its glory, so I decided to spend a couple days inside staring at the Internet.

First, I found a few Facebook pages that seem useful: Writing Kindle Books, a closed group for, believe it or not, those who write books for Kindle. Another is called Book Worms, which is mostly for readers but has an area for authors to mention their books, and yet another is Christian Books, which apparently just helps people know what's out there. So I'm all over that. I also discovered Pixel of Ink, which highlights e-books that cost less than $1, so I'll probably be using them eventually.

The other notable event of the weekend was my first Sample Sunday, which I think may also have been the first ever. Sample Sunday is a Twitter event in which authors tweet about their book(s) and include the hashtag #samplesunday. Then followers are asked to retweet, and on and on, to gain exposure for the books. I joined in, and even though there's no way to tell if it meant anything, I'll continue on the next several Sundays. I can say that my Twitter followers grew by 50%. I'm just now figuring out Twitter, and I'll probably offer some thoughts about it later. In related news, the viewership of my video on YouTube is still going strong. But sales remain elusive.

I've got another marketing ploy up my sleeve, but I can't say anything about it now. If it develops, I'll certainly let you know.

New Media and New Marketing X

My animated video excerpt has broken through the 200-view level on YouTube. It's been up for almost six months, so that's not exactly viral. It's been seen in Slovakia and Vietnam, among other random world sites. I don't know how people can find it in those places, but so few see it in the English-speaking world. I did find a link to it at World News, a web page with an unique approach.

So the big news is the podcast version is now officially available and searchable at the iTunes store. The problem is, I don't know how to steer people toward it there, either. Am I whining now? What do you mean 'now'? Yeah, I'm whining, and I will until I figure this out.

Don't forget the giveaway!

New Media and New Marketing II

Another way to gain attention in the cacophony (yes, that's what I said) of the new media is going viral with a video. Producing a video is easy enough with today's technology -- heck, everything you buy today comes with a camera built in. But how do you go viral with it? That's the real question, isn't it? If you can't work a kitten into a video, then you're just left with your wits.

Here's the video that goes with "The Job." I used stop-motion animation to make my reading a little more bearable, and purposefully made it less-than-slick. I was hoping to invoke the old Rankin-Bass, or perhaps even "Davey and Goliath", charm. But, it may be that it's just cheesy. You make the call, because here's the link right here! "The Job" animated excerpt And for those of you who don't understand my references, here's this and this. Anyway, as of this writing, my video has scored about 145 views, several of which are me, so that's not exactly viral. If you have any suggestions, let me know.