#127 How to Make Your Book Interactive with Videos

Hey, hit splits family. This is Shelley here and I just.

Wanted to share this clip from our Next Steps coaching call from Christian Book Academy. One of our members was trying to decide whether or not to make her book interactive, which in this case meant adding video tutorials that people who get the book can then access as well. So I was giving her some different ideas of how to do this and, and I, I kind of edited out her part of it for the most part so that you're just hearing my feedback. But hopefully even just hearing what I say to her will help you. And even just a little mentoring at the end of done is better than perfect. And making your book interactive can really help you to stand out in the crowd. But at the end of the day, if it keeps you from moving forward on publishing your book, then get your book out. You can always add something like this later. And if you're, you are a Christian Book Academy member, we have a lesson in the final draft phase all about making your book interactive. So definitely check that out. But I hope that this just encourages you as you listen in to this coaching call.

I think it's great. If, you know, if you can describe it and put that text in there, what you may want to do is do both. So describe it, you know, and if they don't want to go to the video or if they find, you know, they can get everything there if they do want to go to the video, that could be what you offer to those who sign up to your email list. So it's like a bonus and they get the bonus videos if they sign up. And then what you can do is if you're just not sure and like all the things about like, I don't know if I'm going to have this website, if I'm going to have this hosting platform, I would do it on YouTube and use an unlisted video. So, so YouTube, typically they're not going to shut down your account. You know, you'll have, you'll be able just, and it's free. So you, you can just put them up there. You can make it a public video if you want to try to grow an audience. But if you want it to be just for those who sign up for your email list or buy your book, then I would make it an unlisted video and there's just a, you know, setting in the YouTube video. That's what I did with my marketing yearbook on Amazon Book. I recorded a tutorial and it was a bonus training to the book. I uploaded it to my YouTube channel as an unlisted video. And then I just give the link to that video in the book. And so that's some. I actually included it in the book. But you could have them sign. I would. If hindsight's 20 20, right. Or maybe I had them sign up. I don't think I had them sign up, but I. What I would recommend for you is having them sign up for your email list. And then in the email you can say here' where you can find those videos and just put a link to those videos. Or in the, in the email say here's a PDF that has all the links to the videos and then you link to that PDF, they can download that PDF to their computer and then they have, in that PDF they can just click the link, it sends them to this video. Click the link, it sends them to this video. So either way you could do that, but I, I would recommend doing that. So you're growing your email list as well, but you can just include those YouTube unlisted video links in your book too. If you want to do a, a GIF or a gif. I don't know how you say it, G. You can record something and then have it transformed into the. The gif. GIF what? I don't know. I'm just gonna call it gif. The gif. And then that image can be embedded into your email and it will, it will play like a video and it'll show people like in. They don't have to click off of it at all. But you would have to.

You would have to do. I think Canva has a way to do.

To create a gif. With my Vimeo account, I know that I can record a video and then in Vimeo I can just choose which section of the video I want to make into a GIF and then I can export it. And I've done that before for my email marketing. But I'm going to put this link. Canva does have a free GIF maker. You can make a GIF in Canva, it looks like for free. And they have two tutorials on doing that. But there's a lot of different ways to do it. There's also ways just to embed links to emails in or to videos in email. Bombbomb. B O M B Bomb. That's one of the ones that, that I've seen. It is a monthly fee. So I know a lot of writers. You're not wanting to spend, you know, extra money for all of that. There's, there's other, you Know different.

Platforms. You might even be able to find something on App Sumo that for a one time fee find something like that where they're doing videos that you can, you know, put in your email somehow. But I would say the easiest way for free to do it would be either to create a GIF and just have it play in the email or to, you can take a screenshot of your video and then link that in your email to the unlisted YouTube video or to a YouTube video. You wouldn't have the actual video embedded in KDP. You would have a link to the video. So you could have a screenshot of the video and then you know, you would need to have some sort of link that you know that they can go to. But what I would do, like I said is I would send them to your email list to sign up. So you would just have one link. Like for me it's broken Koreans book.com and I just, I ended up purchasing that URL and doing. But like for training authors, I do training authors.com forward/free and that goes to all of our free training. So you can use bit.ly to create an easy to remember a link and then send them to, to, to your landing page on mailer light if you want to do that. And then you just have that one link that you put in the book. You can have screenshots, you know, and show them, you know that they'll get these videos. But then they would, they would sign up to your email list and then they would get the, the links that way. Okay, you make it sound so easy.

Well, it's, it's a process, right? And I heard some, I said this on a recent call, but I've been learning all sorts of things related to cooking. I mean I made my first sourdough bread this week. Can you believe that? I'm like mind blown. I'm not, I'm not a homemaker very much, you know, but I'm like for the health benefits. So anyways, I've been learning all these things about fermentation and all the things and one of the ladies says it's not hard, it's just new. And because I, I and it's just a lot to take in and, and it's like ah. And I think that's, you know, what I want to remind all of you is many times it is, you know, it's just a, you know, a matter of a few steps. But it's all new and so that's why sometimes it feels overwhelming and that's okay that it feels that way. You know, just take a deep breath and then, you know, ask God for wisdom of like, what is the easiest way to do this? And you know, honestly, if you want the easiest way.

You know, to do it, you know, it may just be to have a link directly to the video in the book and then you're not having to set up the email and you know, the email list and all stuff. If you want the most effective way to build a audience and really be able to serve your customers later, it would be to set up, set it up, you know, as an email opt in because Amazon doesn't give us our customer information, doesn't give us the customer emails. And so that's one way like you can continue to serve them and offer them other things or you know, communicate with them. But yeah, so I mean that's to, you know, thinking about your goals and thinking about, you know, sometimes you just need to get something done. And the cool thing with self publishing is you can always go back and change it later. So you always have that ability. I've done that before, so I've just done what I could at the time and get it out and then I might go back later and you know, update something with a lead magnet or for my email list or you know, something like that. But anyways, yeah, it's, it's all new and I understand that. But I've given you some ideas. So now, you know, take those ideas and you know, pray about it and decide what, which one is, is the ideal for what I'd like to do and which one is really.

The one that I'll then I'll actually do. You know, that's that, you know, that's easy enough that I can like actually keep moving forward and not get stuck. That's the thing. I never want any of you to get stuck because you're trying to do the ideal, you know, done is better than perfect and so you can always come back and update later. But yeah, it is definitely something.

Something to learn.