Julie Broad (Book Launchers) answers a viewer named Maximus Prime about how to make YouTube videos that promote a nonfiction book without giving away too much content. She advises keeping videos short (about 3–7 minutes), showing a few surprising tips or one detailed tip per video, converting chapters into multiple videos (e.g., 12 chapters → ~20 videos), and using formats (course, worksheets) and CTAs to encourage purchases even when sharing strong content. She uses movie-trailer and course-vs-book analogies and ends with channel CTAs and a swag giveaway.
Chapters
Maximus prime, are you there? This video is to answer your question. How do I make YouTube videos to promote my book without giving away too much of my book? Wondering that too. Stick around. Hey, it's Julie the book broad with Book Launchers. We help nonfiction authors write, publish, and sell a fantastic book that boosts your business and builds your brand. I love my YouTube book launchers community. You guys make my day with your thumbs up and your comments and. And of course, when you subscribe and turn the notifications on, hint, hint. And sometimes when you ask a question, I mosey on into the video studio and shoot a video to answer it. Like today. Here's the question from Maximus Prime. I'm writing a nonfiction book on picking up women. I have no problem talking and can make many YouTube videos. My problem is, how do I make YouTube videos on the subject without giving away too much of my book? How do you draw the line between touching on the subject and giving away all your book information via video? Now this is me talking. When you say picking up women, I'm sure you mean that you're going to pick them up and take them out to a movie or to Disneyland or something like that, right? With that out of the way, here's my take on the subject. Because I get this question in different formats. Whether it's a video or blog or interviews on a podcast or even a webinar you teach. You may think that if you give away some of the best stuff that's in your book that you'll never sell copies of your book. But here's my take. Number one, a good YouTube video is probably three to seven minutes long with an intro and a little music. You can realistically give one tip in depth or a handful of quick tips in that time. So let's say you have a list of 10 things to say to a woman so she feels beautiful. Share the most surprising three from that list and then say, want to know the other seven? They're in my book. Pick up a copy right here. Maybe you have a chapter on all the things guys do that make women lose interest. Share one of those tips in in detail and at the end, say you have a whole chapter in your book on this subject. Let's say Your book has 12 chapters. You can easily shoot 20 videos straight from your book and not even give away half of the good content in your book. Number two, if someone loves your videos, they will buy your book even if they've heard a lot of your content. Besides, your biggest fan probably doesn't even watch every single one of your videos. I mean, I'm sure you've watched all of my videos, right? But that's an exception. Most people will probably only watch a handful of your videos. You're really enjoying this, huh? He's on his phone Number three Look at the movies. If they didn't put some of the best scenes from the movie in that movie trailer, you probably would never go see the movie. So they have to show you some of the best stuff to get you in the door. But unless the movie is garbage and they only have one good scene, you're probably still going to enjoy the movie even if you saw one of the best scenes, right? What was that movie that we just saw that I said they put all the funny parts in the trailer? Worry more about what's going to make them the most interested than what might be giving too much away. I'll spin this in another way. Okay, now I'm dizzy. I'll spin this in another way. Some authors worry that if they put their best stuff in the book, people won't buy their course. Let me give you an example from my life Pitch Anything by Oren Claf is one of my favorite books and when he came out with an online course, I happily bought it. And it was largely his book just turned into a course. But I didn't even mind because it was a different format. It expanded on some of the concepts in the book just enough and it included worksheets and tools. I was a huge fan and I wanted to learn every single nugget, so it was worth it to me. So if you have great content, your fans are going to want to consume it. So show them how awesome you are and don't hold back. Believe that you have enough greatness and great content to go around and and make them want more. Got questions? Ask away in the comments below and I just might shoot a video to answer it for you. Now this is super important. Make sure you smash that thumbs up button. Comment on this video right now with your thoughts on giving away your best stuff. And make sure you subscribe to the channel and turn those notifications on. That way we can hang out as soon as a new video comes out. And when we're hanging out on Friday afternoon chatting about that video I just released, you're going to get entered to win some super cool book launcher Swag. Lovely journal. So nice. It's very soft. All right, see you on the next video.
