Julie BroadYour Non-Fiction Sidekick for Writing, Publishing & Marketing a Book That Builds Your Brand and Grows Your Biz

Not sure it's Worth Doing: Amazon Author Central Video

21 Jan 2023 · 1 min

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Julie Broad checked 20 successful nonfiction authors on Amazon Author Central and found almost none had videos. When they did, it was usually book trailers, unboxings, or short readings. Amazon allows videos under 10 minutes and 500 MB, but the evidence suggests most authors skip it.

Questions this video answers

20 authors

MP4, AVI, WMV, FLV, MOV, MPG

500 megabytes

Less than 10 minutes

Chapters

I searched through 20 different successful nonfiction authors looking for examples. I searched traditional published authors and successful indie authors and I found a very limited number that had any video up here at all. Does that mean it's not worth doing well? Amazon gives you the space to use so I would say it likely has value or why would they have you upload a video here at all? But the fact that I see a ton of successful authors that have nothing on there does make me wonder how much time and effort you should put into it. When I did find a top selling author with video content here, it was usually a book trailer or an unboxing or a short excerpt of a talk given that was about the book or where they were reading an excerpt from the book and they filmed it. Whatever approach you take to your video, ensure it is in an acceptable format which is MP4, AVI, WMV, FLV, MOV or MPG and it has to be smaller than 500 megabytes and less than 10 minutes long.