I’ve decided to write a book on viral video — aimed primarily at marketers and advertisers since amateur videographers and film makers don’t have enough money to buy books. Naturally I haven’t written a book before, but I sometimes read them. So I figure I’m pretty qualified.
The working title is: “The Profit (Prophet) of Viral Video,” and it comes with access to an extranet that hosts updates and links to case-study videos.
To you, dear readers, I pose the following question:
- Can I write a book despite having a full-time job that occupies no less than 12 hours a day? And without compromising my wife and kids? I’m willing to sleep less.
- Any better ideas on the title? It’s a double entendre.
- How do I find a publisher? Of the 1,000 of you that read this I have to believe someone knows a friggin’ publisher that focuses in mainstream marketing books. I don’t feel like self publishing. How about forwarding this post to your buddy at a publishing company and help him discover his next New York Times best seller?
- I want to follow the lead of Hemingway (pictured here), but I will be using shorter sentences and not killing myself when I’m done.
Here’s the synopsis of “The Profit (Prophet) of Viral Video”:
The online video market is exploding, with incredible surges of consumer-generated online video, and dramatic jumps in the videos viewed on such sites as YouTube, Google Video, Yahoo Video, AOL Video, Revver and Metacafe. Online video has surpassed cable television as a medium and will soon merge with traditional television viewing in ways we can hardly anticipate.
It’s the end of the 60-second spot. Marketers can no longer rely on creative advertisements that are thrust on consumers “interruption style.” Advertisements have to do more than hold attention, they must create a viral effect in which the video is so good the viewer will share it with friends. As we consumers take control our viewing habits through online video and time-shifted viewing (TiVo), the only videos we’ll elect to watch (when we have an option) are those that inform and entertain us.
(Here’s the part where I toot my own horn): Viral video creator Kevin Nalty has shared more than 200 short videos online that have been viewed my millions online and featured on prominent sites like Yahoo and Google. His videos have appeared on ABC Nightline, Good Morning America, CBS News, CNN and BBC. Nalty shares his learning from creating videos and maintaining the most popular blog on the subject of online video profiting. His background in television and marketing – including participation in some of the most viral video campaigns – gives him unique insight into what works and doesn’t in the new age of short-form, demand driven video. He also makes a side income by producing videos for Revver and Metacafe, which share their advertising revenue with creators.
In “The Profit (Prophet) of Viral Videos,” Nalty provides the tips you’ll need to:- Understand the impact of online video to advertisers, marketers and brands
- Create appealing viral videos that get forwarded and shared
- Market your promotional and entertainment videos through prominent online video channels
- Develop ways to measure the views and impact of your videos
- Profit from vehicles that that share advertising revenue with video creators (like Revver and Metacafe)
- Build your own video site without any technical expertise
- Stay on top of the rapidly changing online-video landscape
Target Audiences:
- Advertisers looking for ways to create viral videos for their clients
- Marketers wanting to understand how to play in the new world where the consumer can be your best marketing channel
- Amateur video creators looking to make a side income doing what they love
- Filmmakers who are not sure how to approach the online space
P.S. Don’t steal the idea please. I’m trusting you. I’ve already got about 10 chapters outlined with sub bullets, but I thought I’d better not give the whole thing away or you won’t buy the book.
P.P.S. Post comments or contact me via the e-mails listed in the “about me” section of this blog.
Did you realize how rare a picture of Hemingway that is that you used here? Hemingway prefered to write standing up. It was his way of insuring that he wasn’t getting long-winded. He would write until he couldn’t stand it any more.
I did not know that. Fascinating. Maybe we should only videotape and blog standing up. All I remember about Hemingway was these really long sentences linked with the word “and.”
Maybe one day I’ll be known as only videotaping while driving.
Don’t forget, Marquis. Your fame (like most notorious REAL artists) will only come when you’re dead. Please delay that as long as possible.
Book? Given the hyper-fast evolution of this field, how could you write a book?
By the time you found a publisher to bite on the manuscript, it would be stale. By the time the thing hit the shelves at your local B&N, it would be useless.
Write a paper, self publish as a PDF, and sell on Metacafe or whichever site lets you do that.
I don’t think the book is aimed as us early adopting technorati, Eric. There are still millions of folks who use books and plenty of folks who are just NOW hearing about watching cartoons on the COMputer. I’m still meeting folks who don’t know how to set up an email account or how to hook up their computer to their rotary phone, believe it or not.
And the city council of Marshall currently uses a wordproccesor to show slideshows of pictures of houses that violate the Trashy Yard Ordinance at meetings and think they’re on the cutting edge of technology. They wouldn’t know a PDF from a ISP, but they can chaw on a book for a spell and they just might do that because nobody likes to feel like they’ve been left behind at the train station of progress.
Nalts,
You need to find a book agent rather than a publisher. An agent is worth every penny. They know which publishers to target and which editors will be receptive, plus they sell your book before you start writing it which is huge bonus. That is how I sold my book which was based on one of my websites.
Graham–please peek at my blog of 480 personal stories of homelessness and driving L.A. callgirls and tell me if you think there’s an agent anywhere who can dig it. ( http://marquisdejolie.bogspot.com )
Nalts–Well, I guess I’ll never be famous for being cute and cuddly…or mainstream. If the Revver blogskateers ignore me any louder I’d go deaf. Fame’s okay, I guess. That’s what Marquisdejolie On Video is for. But what I’d rather have is money. That’s what http://jamesjarvis.net is for.
Shameless. Totally shameless self promotion. A guy’s gotta be able to do that to succeedin viral video, eh?
Book 2 could be the interesting people you met along the video highway?
Crap, I forgot about putting things in parens stripping out the linkage. One more try: http://marquisdejolie.blogspot.com
I can’t believe you wrote a whole book about rock, paper scissors. What’s more amazing is that I just spent 30 minutes reading about how to perfect my game.
So THAT’S what the corporate sponsored version of The Fight Club looks like. Guess I’d better sign up for the sports channel if I want to catch Monday Night RPS. Has the Olympics committee been contacted yet?
I know a couple of authors and they both used agents as well. I’ve also learned that you typically do not make any $$ on your first couple of non-fiction publications unless they become huge blockbusters… but you do gain the notoriety.
Now that you mention it…. if I’m not going to make any money maybe I should self publish. Then I don’t have to worry about spelling OR split infinitives.
I hope you can get a book deal so you can get me in as well. Here are some more book ideas of mine:
– Girls Gone Crazy: Censored Photos of the Craziest Girls Ever
– 199A: What If The 90s Had One More Year?
– The Book of Pages
This is not a book idea, but it might make a good TV show. Some back woods east Texans suddenly get rich. They discover toiletwater or something on their land. I don’t know. But a ludicrously greedy banker wants their money in his bank and wants to keep them close to him so he can control their millions, so he talks them into moving into the big city near him. Whackiness ensues. We could call it something catchy, like “The Scranton Hillbillies”.
This is one of the funniest threads we’ve had here in a while.
Marquisdejolie – Having a big following is pretty much a prerequiste to get any agent interested. Personally, I didn’t quite understand your blog when I peeked at it, even though it is something about homeless stories, so I can’t comment directly to your work. Mainstream yet unique are what agents look for. A good example is Foundmagazine.com. Perfect blog to book roll-up.
Phil – You got it backwards. Non-fiction advances are very good and it is fiction that pays crummy until you have written a couple of books.
Nalts – Don’t even think about going the “for Dummies” route. They pay so-so, BUT more importantly they also keep the copyright on the work which totally blows.
Nalts II – Yep, 204 pages on Rock Paper Scissors. Since no one had ever written a book about it before and we were the logical authority on the subject, it was not a hard sell and had multiple publishers bidding for it.
Mainstream, eh? If I could do stories about overweight, self-absorbed semi-literates with too much credit card debt and an open layaway account with Moloch, I wouldn’t need an agent. Hahaha! Thanks for taking a peek.
Nalts- I love your blog.
Unfortunately, I have not insight into the publishing business. I do think the book idea is fantastic.
Where can I sign-up in advance for a copy? I would like to start pushing some of our marketing campaigns in the direction of online video, but don’t know nearly enough about how to target our audience in this media yet.