In re: to the book plugging, I suspect that many folks stop the video before it is finished. Youtube tells me that most people watch these episodes for about 3 minutes before quitting. Rob had a good point--these could be people back to read comments and not re-watch, but I suspect a great many simply lose interest and move on. From a marketing standpoint, my initial spot for the plug was the best, since that's the spot just before most of them quit watching anyway (regardless if there is a plug or not, I might add).
However, it might be that placing it at the end is better, since there the only people who will see it are the "diehard" fans who are probably more likely to buy the books anyway. Would someone who only watched a minute or two be a prospective book buyer? I guess that's the big question.
I've been thinking that maybe a good thing to do would be make a 3-5 minute infomercial (not trying to hide it as such) about each book. Then I could link to these from my main videos after a casual mention ("If you'd like more information, click here...") This would probably be more effective than just a quick plug, since I could spend more time talking about the books' features and so on.
At any rate, as far as I can tell the whole thing has netted maybe a half dozen sales, if we can believe people's comments. There may be more who bought them without commenting, of course (hard to know how many). The sales figures for the books have fluctuated rapidly, sometimes going days without a sale, then 1-4 sales, and so on. The biggest spikes ever were the Slashdot reviews, which I figure brought in as many as 20-25 sales each. Obviously, not having these in bookstores and easier to find is more damaging than anything else, since casual folks with an interest in the topic will likely never hear about them. You'd have to very hardcore to even know they exist, and out of that tiny percentage, an even smaller percentage willing to buy it.
Thanks for the comments, Mark and Michael.
In re: to the book plugging, I suspect that many folks stop the video before it is finished. Youtube tells me that most people watch these episodes for about 3 minutes before quitting. Rob had a good point--these could be people back to read comments and not re-watch, but I suspect a great many simply lose interest and move on. From a marketing standpoint, my initial spot for the plug was the best, since that's the spot just before most of them quit watching anyway (regardless if there is a plug or not, I might add).
However, it might be that placing it at the end is better, since there the only people who will see it are the "diehard" fans who are probably more likely to buy the books anyway. Would someone who only watched a minute or two be a prospective book buyer? I guess that's the big question.
I've been thinking that maybe a good thing to do would be make a 3-5 minute infomercial (not trying to hide it as such) about each book. Then I could link to these from my main videos after a casual mention ("If you'd like more information, click here...") This would probably be more effective than just a quick plug, since I could spend more time talking about the books' features and so on.
At any rate, as far as I can tell the whole thing has netted maybe a half dozen sales, if we can believe people's comments. There may be more who bought them without commenting, of course (hard to know how many). The sales figures for the books have fluctuated rapidly, sometimes going days without a sale, then 1-4 sales, and so on. The biggest spikes ever were the Slashdot reviews, which I figure brought in as many as 20-25 sales each. Obviously, not having these in bookstores and easier to find is more damaging than anything else, since casual folks with an interest in the topic will likely never hear about them. You'd have to very hardcore to even know they exist, and out of that tiny percentage, an even smaller percentage willing to buy it.
Matt Barton, Managing Editor
Location: St. Cloud, Minnesota, USA
Email: matt@armchairarcade.com