Most successful authors face the same question. How do I sell my book? Creative writing classes teach you how to express yourself through poetic prose but not on how to sell a book once it's completed. Book signings and events are a great way to get your name out there. The problem is, if nobody knows who you are then why would they come to your book signing?

This is where video marketing comes in. The power of the internet gives authority to anyone who wants to use it for innovative and efficient ways to market products or services. The best video marketing strategy is YouTube marketing.

The following steps are for authors who need help marketing their books and want a creative and inexpensive way to reach millions of potential followers.

Making a commercial for yourself is easier that you may think.

Step 1: Choose a recording method: Video tape yourself giving a seminar, lecture or discussing a topic that your book focuses on. For instance, if you have a cook book, video yourself preparing a signature meal and make your own cooking show. You can also record your computer screen using free software. Use images as a slide show and read a chapter from your book as if you are giving a powerpoint presentation.

Step 2: Record yourself or hire a professional voice actor to read a chapter to spark the interest in the listener. If you are on a budget this is the best way to reach a large target audience without spending a lot of money.

Step 3: Create a YouTube Account and begin posting your videos. Audio books sell very well. Video marketing a book is very similar and while people are on their pc working, they can listen to chapters of your book recorded on video. Videos also spread much faster than audio on the internet.

Step 4: Determine who are you selling the book to. Hint: Everyone, is not a good answer. You should have a niche group of people that want to buy your book and market directly to them. It will help your video go viral in the right community and then your product will sell better and faster. Use the keywords from that niche for your title on the video. Don't use the title of your book because people still don't know who you are or what your book is about. Using a key search term will insure your video gets more views.

Step 5: Link you YouTube video to your website (please tell me you have one) so viewers can get more information about you, sign up for your newsletter or actually purchase the book online.

Your website should also have video chapters available for potential buyers to listen to a chapter of your thoughts and views. YouTube marketing can be very beneficial to you. It's an untapped arena for authors and you will set yourself aside from your competition with the use of video to sell a book.

Step 6: Use a YouTube friend adder to help make your video go viral. Introducing your video to millions of other YouTube users will take an eternity if you manually do it one person at a time. Professional YouTube marketers have automated as many steps as possible. Let automated software do the work for you so you can reap the rewards and continue to create and share.