Liz Bemis and Darynda Jones Launch a Bestseller – a.k.a. “How to create a video PR Campaign to pitch your book to THE WORLD.”
Monday, February 14, 2011 at 8:40AM Expert-In-Residence Week at Pitch U
Pitching Your Book to Readers (Book Promo Video) - post 1 of 3.
Note from Diane, Founder and Chief Pitch U Alchemist: What follows is a unique look behind the scenes when a debut author is launched by a major publisher in an all-out blitz to create a bestseller.
If you think pitching your book is hard, imagine the pressure of pitching to The World.
Darynda Jones’ agent, Alexandra Machinist of The Linda Chester Literary Agency, sold her debut novel, FIRST GRAVE ON THE RIGHT, in a 3-book hardcover deal to Jennifer Enderlin, an editor at St. Martin’s Press and one of the most recognizable names in Publishing.
**POST YOUR QUESTIONS all week. This is your chance to get answers about an important aspect of book promotion.**
St. Martins then began the process that few authors ever experience. They positioned her debut to Launch Big.
At that point, Darynda began to work with 5-time Golden Heart finalist, Liz Bemis of Bemis Promotions, a firm specializing in websites, print and multi-media materials, promotion, strategy & branding for authors.
What you’re about to read today, Wednesday, and Friday is the story behind creating a strategic promotional video designed to go viral. It’s the story of a lifetime.
Think about it.
Their job was to create a video that so successfully “pitched” Darynda’s book that everyone who saw it was influenced to take action. Buy the book. Share the video.
TODAY: The story of creating the video from initial pitch (way too long) to final product.
WEDNESDAY: They’ll dissect the entire marketing and promotion that went into launching FIRST GRAVE ON THE RIGHT.
**Guest Appearance by Editor Jennifer Enderlin. She’ll take questions, so follow us on FaceBook and Twitter . We’ll let you know when she arrives.**
FRIDAY: The real numbers behind what actually happened, from number of views & new followers to site hits.
The Video PR Campaign Begins Like This…
In my role as author, I've probably pitched in person 50 times over the past eleven years. And hundreds more on paper.
Over the past 9 years, I've worked with countless authors (both clients and friends) to promote their published books. I've also written quite a few scripts for “trailer” type videos.
All of this experience has taught me two things:
1. KISS: Keep it Short, Stupid. People of the 21st century have exceedingly short attention spans. (Myself included. I admit it. There are days I moonlight as one of the minion dogs from UP! ... “SQUIRREL!”)
2. I'm incapable of “short” on the first try. (Or, in the interest of honesty, the second, third or fourth time) :D I'm wordy. “Why-say-anything-in-10-words-if-I-can-use-20” wordy. I mean, “Why won't-this-woman-SHUT-UP,-already?!” wordy.
So when Diane called, I was in the process of cutting all of our footage together in what was supposed to be a fun, short, video.
What we hoped to accomplish with her video, was to create a fast, super-fun video that would capture the essence of the book, and hopefully go viral.
We're going to talk about the process of making Darynda's video, but before I get started, I want to share the final result.
The Famous Video and the Long Road to Get There
Darynda’s video:
As the client (and the brilliant mind behind character Charley “I see dead people” Davidson), I've invited Darynda to pop in throughout and give her perspective on this whole process.
Anyway, before I flew to Albuquerque, I wrote the script with Darynda's help. (I'm ashamed to admit it was the better part of 6 pages long.) And we'd cut a LOT before we called it done. Here's a link to our edited script for the video (down to 4 pages).
Oh well, live and learn.
LIZ: As we started filming, we realized there was a lot of stuff that amused us, but that the audience wasn't going to understand without a lot of setup.
- And setup takes time.
- And people lose attention.
- And we wanted to WOW viewers with this video and hopefully... make them go BUY THE BOOK.
So we started cutting, almost immediately, even as we were filming. We chopped whole sections.
DARYNDA: Thankfully, our actress, Tanner Daniels, was very flexible. She was great and so much fun to work with.
LIZ: When I got home I put the first-draft version of the video together. The response we each felt (as did the few people we let see it) was
- “Tragically Underwhelmed”,
- “Bored”, and
- “... (Zzzz)...Wait, what?!”
(We'd let you see a copy, but apparently all of them have been destroyed. – Thank God!)
DARYNDA: Exactly! We were charting new personal territory and we learned what NOT to do.
LIZ: So then we cut it down significantly. Audiences stopped falling asleep. (Note: they still weren't jumping up and down). (Version 2, if you’re dying to see what NOT to do.)
DARYNDA: I think as a quick promotional product, it still wasn’t working. We didn’t have the biggest budget. Well, we didn’t have any budget and were working with volunteers.
If we hadn’t have found Tanner, I’m not sure what we would have done. She was a terrific sport and willing to do anything.
LIZ: It still wasn't working. And then we decided to take some fun footage of our actress pretending to be the grim reaper (which we couldn't fit into the first version), based on the taglines that are on the dust jacket of the book.
DARYNDA: I loved this idea. It was all Liz and just really brought the video alive. So much fun!
LIZ: And our final video was born. We were so lucky to get Bill Barwick (whom you might recognize as the voice of the Encore Westerns channel) to do our voice-overs.
Ask Questions
Darynda and I will be here all day to answer any questions you might have… then, on Wednesday, we're going to talk about Marketing & Promotion (using hers as an example).
Finally, on Friday, we'll be taking a geek's look at analyzing the launch as well as take any questions you might have on or off topic.
--
Liz Bemis is the Founder and Creative Director of Bemis Promotions, a firm specializing in websites, print and multi-media materials, promotion, strategy & branding for authors.
Liz has worked in the design and technology fields for more than seventeen years with clients in a wide range of industries, including publishing, restaurants, non-profit, small business, corporate, military/government and educational institutions. Through the years, her consulting and corporate work has included acclaimed site design and comprehensive ecommerce site development. Additionally, she has implemented Ad Agency-led international marketing campaigns and managed application development for the US Air Force.
Additionally, Liz has written seventeen yet-to-be-published manuscripts and is a five-time finalist of the coveted Golden Heart award, given by the Romance Writers of America.
Reader Comments (21)
Great post, Liz and Darynda!! Here's hoping for continued success with the book!! :)
The video is great! I love the part where she nearly drops the scythe on herhead.
Thanks so much for having us!
~D~
What a fun video! You came a LONG way from version 2...lol.....it's short and snappy and fun. Great job.
What's the target length to shoot for in a book trailer? How long before your audience starts to nod off?
Thanks for being here =)
carrie
Carrie,
Thanks for stopping by! It would depend on the format of the video. But unless a video is entertaining my socks off, I'm not going to give it more than 90 seconds. Voice overs help shorten a video (and frankly, make it feel more professional!). You'll notice that we sped up the actual video (like Charley going over the wall and tackling the bad guy) in order to keep it as snappy as possible. Because this video was meant to be a little campy, it worked. It wouldn't work as well for every video.
Ha ha ha ha, I loved seeing the two videos. The longer one was okaaaay, but the voice track was off, and I agree it is kind of long. Your final was so funny, especially when the actress was jumping around and almost whacked herself with her own scythe. Loved it! I bet the second version gets tons of views. Thanks for sharing your process as well as the earlier and later results. You can definitely see why the final one works so much better than the original. It is short, sweet, snappy and gets the message across. In fact, I'm on my way to Tweet/FB/MS it to my masses.
Carol,
Thanks! This video does prove (I believe) the old adage "Less is More!"
Nice to see the process--and that you were wise enough not to go with the Charley interview. Reyes is the stuff of dreams. Best to leave him there for each reader to imagine (although I'm still wanting a poster!)
I adore the video you guys came up with. And when I watched the one not used... I completely understood why you thought it would work. It's in the style of a scene with dialog.
This is exactly the difference between summarizing your book vs. creating the hook. When you summarize, you're in the mode of working with the character and plot. But when you create the hook, you're IMPLYING your book (the genre, the shape of the story and how it unfolds, what conflict *might* exist, the tone of the storytelling, and the attitude of the main characters).
Your awesome video does ALL this.
BUY the book. SHARE the video. See? It worked!
Thanks Gwenlyn! And if you knew what we went through to get our Reyes, you'd understand why we were bummed not to be able to use him. (The actor was an incredibly good sport... and was he ever easy to look at, too!) But I agree with you. Reyes is best portrayed in each reader's mind. :D
The road un-traveled had all the elements of Darynda's books... in fact, a lot of the dialog was taken directly from the book. However, it didn't work nearly as well as we'd hoped. Charley nearly lopping her own head off with her [Styrofoam] scythe, however DID. (Note: no actors were harmed in the making of this film...) (Note: I'm lying. Tanner Daniels was bruised like a summer fruit after all the tackles she performed in the cemetery!)
I loved the post and the video - it's so cool to see the whole production from start to finish!
I know you're going to get into numbers later this week, so feel free to tell me to be patient and wait :) But, do you have a sense of how successful the trailer was in terms of driving momentum for the book? And was the trailer something that St. Martins asked for, or was it part of Darynda's personal publicity efforts?
Great job, ladies - can't wait to see what you put together for SECOND GRAVE.
Sara,
Thanks for your questions! There's no way to know how successful the video was for getting readers to the bookstore, unfortunately. I can tell you how many people viewed it, and where they found it. But unless they clicked "like" or left a comment, there's not really any way to know for certain how effective it is (except for anecdotal evidence). The trailer was part of Darynda's personal publicity efforts (in combination with her website, the book's site (www.firstgraveontheright.com), but St. Martin's was really on board and helped us to promote it. (It was sent out with a newsletter and was used several other places.)
Thanks again!
Great trailer, ladies. The second version was lots of fun, but I think the final product has better pacing.
Ok, I'm exhausted and all I did was read the post and watch the versions. You gals must have been wiped!
Well done. Watching/reading this happen from start to finish is VERY enlightening and I'll be looking forward to wed and fri posts. This is a great inside look at what happens behind the scenes that we never get to see.
Kudos to your actress for being so willing to do whatever you needed.
Thanks for the glimpse into your madness. :)
And I'm really looking forward to this read. The title is smashing!
Making videos! How fun is that!? The long version was cute, but video #2 is much more snappy. Poor Tanner and her war wound, um, I mean, bruises. Great voice over, too.
Thanks for sharing your process, Liz and Darynda!
Jenn!
I think the main difference between the long and short version is the voice: the longer version shows us the character's voice (which I loved), but the shorter version captures the essence of the voice of the novel. Intrigues us so that we want to go read the book.
Laurie,
Thanks for stopping by!
Candi -- Tanner was a great sport! And do pick up Darynda's book. It's BRILLIANT!!!
Angelica -- Absolutely! And it's definitely something that should serve as a lesson when you're pitching! Give them enough to ask for it, but don't spill all your candy! (This applies to your pitch &/or query letter. This does NOT apply to a synopsis!)
Liz
Jenn! - Thanks for stopping by!