Web Map to Social Media, Part 7: As Seen on YouTube

There isn't much to say about YouTube that hasn't already been said, but it would be careless to exclude this mammoth of social media from our series. And "mammoth" is no exaggeration: YouTube is big, hairy, and, er, tusk-wielding. Well, at least it's the first of those three, unless we were to explore some extended metaphor. Get this: YouTube has the eighth largest audience on the Internet, pulling in 55 million unique visitors each month, according to Nielsen/Net Ratings. Read: YouTube's no fad. Google doesn't pay $1.65 billion for fads. And fads don't hold this much book marketing and publicity potential.

So, what exactly does YouTube---or at least the technology it employs---mean for book publishing?

Well, duh, book trailers for one. (But that's not all. More later.) In an interview with Publishers Weekly blogger Barbara Vey, Sheila Clover English, CEO of book trailer producer Circle of Seven Production, said she "expect[s] to see book video become a main element in most authors' marketing campaigns." Whether trailers become the "main" element remains to be seen, but there's little doubt that online marketing and publicity efforts---including YouTube and other social media---will become standard in book launches.

This year Simon & Schuster partnered with the New York Film Academy to create the "Reel Reads Book Sizzle Contest," in which 400 students were invited to create a three minute trailer for one of S&S's titles. The contest itself hasn't much to do with YouTube, but another S&S project does: BookVideosTV. BookVideosTV is a channel on YouTube that exhibits book marketing and publicity possibilities other than book trailers. It features author profiles and even some behind-the-scene looks at the book in the developmental stage. It's like VH1's "Behind the Music," but twice as sordid! (No, not really. Not at all.)

So, bottom line, YouTube can be way more than just trailers for books. Even Oprah and Harpo Studios announced this month the launch of the "Oprah on YouTube" channel. Neither the press release nor Oprah's welcome video mentioned Oprah's Book Club specifically, but who knows? Perhaps the juggernaut that is Oprah's Book Club will eventually find a second home on YouTube.