These days any author serious about promoting and selling his or her book will have to consider producing a video for YouTube and/or Vimeo.
This can be anywhere from a 30-second, very creative ad that can go viral…
(Picture this: baby standing in a crib looking directly at the camera, screaming. Shot remains perfectly still for 10 seconds while baby screams. Then we see a mother’s hands place headphones on the baby, and within a few seconds the baby quiets down and smiles into the camera. Voice-over says: “Try it for yourself. Listen to the audiobook of [your title].”)
… to a 3-5 minute interview with the author (if the author comes across well on camera)…
… to a 3-5 minute mix of 30-second segments read from the book punctuated by 30-second reader testimonials.
Stephen Davis took this to the extreme by making (writing, producing, narrating) a series of 5 videos based on his book Butterflies Are Free to Fly: A New and Radical Approach to Spiritual Evolution, and a 5-minute video invitation to the workshops for YouTube. You can watch the YouTube invitation here and the 5-part workshop series here.
The cost of video production like this will vary widely, from $100 a finished minute for a simple video voice-over narration to as much as $10,000 a finished minute for a turnkey package of writing, producing, narrating, etc.