Book Review Blog

So, I posted my book review on Friday and as of this morning I currently have 53 upload views. For any of you who haven't seen it yet, you can find it at  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Baf8qYXsk5Y It is a review on the Vampire Academy series by Richelle Meade. I wanted to talk a little bit today about the motivations that went into this video and the ones to come. I am an avid entertainment junkie, as is my husband. One of our favorite entertainment sites is the Escapist network and the two guys I love to watch the most are MovieBob and Yahtzee. Now here is the funny thing about this: Moviebob and I generally have very different opinions about what movies are good and what are not. Yahtzee does game reviews. (For those of you who don't know me... the closest I get to gaming is Dance Dance on the Wii and the occasional round of solitair or spider solitaire.)

   Which begs one to ask, why do I like these guys? Well, for those of you with sensitive ears, avoid Yahtzee. But that is why I like him. He is British and has been living in Australia for some time. His accent is a really fun blend of the two. Plus he has learned a most creative method of insulting in the most graphic way without hardly ever cursing! As for Moviebob... well, watch his videos and you will see. 

    One night, oh about a year ago, I was in the middle of a very good book when my husband asked me to join him for our regular Yahtzee/Bob time. While I was watching it I though 'You know, someone should do book reviews like this!!'. If any of you have surfed the internet looking for reviews.... Grrr, right? Even the good reviews (and by good, I mean accurate) are so... mmmm... boring. Which is why the non-book people think that book people are boring. (For the record, I know LOTS of book people who are ANYTHING but boring!!!) But the point is that books are long and usually complex. Authors aren't restricted by our medium to only 90 minutes or to a limited story-line to allow for more action in the way that movies and games are. It is impossible to do a book review in less than three minutes and when you talk for three minutes (known as a monologue in the acting world) you had better have something else going on or your audience will get BORED!!!!

   Which led to the inspiration to do artwork with the video (that and it was a great way to keep myself OUT of the video!!)  Of course this led to a whole host of other problems, not the least of which is copyrighting. It took forever to get the right images to fit the story and to get enough that there wasn't too much down time. Not being a natural artist myself and not having the time to take all the shots I wanted with my own camera (I mean, my goal is to do two of these a month and I have to read the book, write the review and splice the whole thing together in basically two weeks.... while being a mom, cleaning house, being a wife, covering my volunteer work and... oh, yeah WRITING!! That is the whole point of this venture, right... to give me more time to write!!!) 

    Then after you put it all together you have to market it. Why? Do you have any idea how many videos there are on Youtube? A LOT!!! and mine is just one little book review. So how do you go about that? Well, use your resources: Friends and family, social networking sites (Facebook in my case) and e-mail. So, I did all that and got a very nice response... out of the 189 people I asked to watch and re-post etc.... 53 responded. (BIG SHOUT OUT TO YOU GUYS!!!) So, where do you go from there? Well, you have to increase your visibility on the web. I went to different search engines trying to search for my video and got nothing. (so depressing!) Then I searched for my blog. Neither were coming up. So I did what everyone does when they have a question. I searched and found that you can register your sites on a variety of search engines and that will get them up sooner than waiting for their crawlers. Then there is this whole webmasters tool box on all of them (as an independent business owner, you are your own webmaster and IT tech!!!) There are all sorts of free, legal ways to increase your views and that is what I will be working on this week... along with the next review and well.... writing. Because that is what it is REALLY all about!!!