- YouTube is a great platform.
Look, we're connecting on it right now!
Nice to meet you (laughs).
And because of that potential to connect,
authors can use YouTube to sell books,
but you probably have questions
about what you should do to grow a channel on YouTube
where you can sell your books.
So if you're curious about building a channel on YouTube
to grow your audience and sell books, this video is for you.
(upbeat music)
Hey, there I'm Julie, the Book Broad from Book Launchers.
We're your professional self-publishing team
helping you write, publish, and promote a nonfiction book
that will help you have a huge impact on readers,
and, done right, will also help you grow your brand,
build your business, and make you money.
And the best part, you keep all rights and royalties.
Now, lots of lovely folks ask me
about growing your YouTube channel,
and then using it to sell books.
And I am a huge fan of YouTube,
and we've covered this topic a bit in the past,
and I'll link to the playlist at the end of this video.
But, personally, I don't actually feel
like I am a YouTube expert,
so I asked my friend and fellow self-publishing YouTuber,
Dale L. Roberts, to share his best tips with you.
What you might not know
is that when Dale and I first connected,
our channels were roughly the same size.
He's since grown his do more than 30,000,
and when you're watching this video later in the year,
it's very likely he's over 50,000,
or crushing his a hundred thousand goal.
His a hundred thousand...hundred thousand K
was what I was about to say (laughs).
So to do that,
he's had to learn some of YouTube's best practices,
so he's the perfect person
to share some great tips with you.
But first, if you're not familiar with Dale,
please, Dale, go ahead and introduce yourself.
- Hey, I'm Dale L. Roberts, bestselling author,
as well as the host of "Self Publishing with Dale"
over on YouTube,
and I've written, gosh, well over 40 books,
I just stopped counting after awhile,
between my fitness books underneath Dale L. Roberts,
my children's books as Dale Lewis,
and a host of other ones underneath
some ghost written brand names.
- Now, in case you're new to this channel,
Dale is one of my favorite people.
If you don't subscribe to his channel,
make sure you do that after this video is over.
Now, let's dive in.
I asked Dale to give me his three best tips
for every author growing a YouTube channel.
- First of all, just start.
And that's gonna be the thing, just starting.
It's much like writing and publishing,
if you don't get going, you'll never be able to know
what you can be able to accomplish.
And when you start, become consistent
with actually doing some type of regular practices
in whether it's promoting a video,
shooting a video, uploading a video,
if you want YouTube to really grow and prosper
and build an audience there,
you gotta start and be consistent.
My next tip is going to be,
you gotta invite people to the party.
Don't expect YouTube just to go ahead
and start sending your videos out to everyone,
and you become a viral sensation,
that just doesn't happen anymore,
and there are some rare birds out there,
but for the most part,
most of us actually have to bring other people in,
so if you've got an email newsletter following,
any of your books, you can always put a call to action
to go to your YouTube channel.
Maybe even plug any type of, you know,
products that you have and your YouTube channel
by going and checking out some videos
on your YouTube channel,
and third, this is a very big tip here,
is engagement is absolutely key.
You must, must, must, must communicate with your community
if you want to keep people on,
and keep growing and retaining what you have,
give them a thumbs up, put a heart on their post
and comment back.
And here's a big golden bonus tip,
get the last word in whenever you can,
and that doesn't mean that you're starting an argument,
finish out with a question
so you can keep the conversation going,
because here's how you grow on YouTube,
it's through watch time and engagement,
and engagement is really just having a conversation,
and keeping them coming back
and growing that sense of community,
so never take this too lightly.
- Those are pretty golden tips, Dale,
I'll just quickly recap.
So the first thing is to start, and start with consistency,
so you need to post regularly.
The second tip is to invite others to the party,
and the third tip is when they come to your party,
talk to them!
Just to, you know, I reply
to the majority of comments here on YouTube,
so go ahead and comment, and if you ask a question,
there's a very good chance,
if I don't have a video already that answers it,
I will shoot a video to answer your questions.
That's one of the things I do
to create and support engagement.
Plus of course, if you don't know this already,
we also enter everyone that comments
the day of video is released into a draw,
and every other Tuesday, we do a live stream
and drop two winners.
So that also creates engagement,
and it's just extra fun for me and for the community.
But check out Dale's videos too,
and even in this particular video, he engages.
It takes time to respond to people,
but someone gave you the gift of their comment,
the smart thing to do to grow your channel
and build your community is to comment back.
Now, once you have a bit of a community
on your YouTube channel,
you will want to start converting that audience
into book sales.
So I asked Dale how he recommends authors sell books
using their YouTube channel.
Here's his advice.
- Here's a little bit of a tip
when it comes to selling your book,
deliver value upfront.
So let's just say for instance,
you have a top 10 reasons of such and such
for whatever niche that you're publishing within,
and you've delivered nine solid tips
right before that 10th and best tip,
you're gonna slip it on in there
that you've got a book,
and you're gonna go ahead
and share some more information.
"You wanna go take a look at this book, it's awesome,
it has more than just these 10 tips,
and it's gonna be at xyz.com," whatever your link is,
and then also put your link inside your description
and tell them that it is there.
- I agree.
When you awesome value and great content,
people will want more,
so it's a great time to say,
if you want all the details or more on this,
my book is packed full.
In the playlist I'll link to at the end,
I've even recommended using sections of your book
as content for your videos,
and then letting folks know when you're shooting that video,
that this content is coming from the book,
so if they want more,
there's a whole lot more in your fabulous book
that they can order or download at your website
or wherever you wanna send them.
Now, Book Launchers is a full service company,
helping you produce and promote books
that are of the absolute best quality.
We're producing books that are as good or better
than a traditionally published book.
But that kind of quality is not in everyone's budget,
and some people really just want to DIY the entire process.
And when we meet people like that,
we send them to Dale
for his DIY Self Publishing Course for Beginners.
So here is a quick synopsis on that,
in case it's a fit for you.
- What are the are the best first steps?
And the best first steps, I outline all of it for you
in the DIY Publishing Course for Beginners.
Inside this course, you're gonna learn
everything that you need to
in order to start from setting up an account,
where you need to be,
the types of books you need to produce,
and how you produce those,
and then what you need to do after you upload them
and publish them over into the marketplace.
- I've met so many of his students that are successful now,
so I can wholeheartedly endorse that course, and Dale,
for anyone that wants steps
and a way to get a book on the market, within a budget.
You can connect with Dale everywhere,
but I wanna help him hit his a hundred K goal,
so head on over to "Self Publishing With Dale,"
and subscribe, and make sure you say hello
on his most recent video.
But before you do that,
please hit that thumbs up button,
and let us know in the comments below
what questions you have
regarding selling books on YouTube.
And when you comment the day of video is released,
you'll be entered to win some sweet but conscious swag,
like our hashtag no boring books mug,
or our oh, so soft journal
for writing down all your brilliant ideas
and even the not so brilliant ideas too.
You're quite lovely to spend time with,
shall we keep hanging out?
This is the playlist on selling books on YouTube,
and if that's not what you need right now,
then you should check out this video
that YouTube thinks you should watch right now.
Either way, go ahead and click on one of those videos,
I'm waiting for you!
(upbeat music)