Fri, 28 Mar 2008 19:03:00 +0000

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 06:22:00 +0000

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 21:44:00 +0000

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 02:17:00 +0000

Sat, 08 Mar 2008 00:07:00 +0000

The new ebook by Circle of Seven Productions CEO, Sheila Clover English has been completed and was released yesterday in the COS Newsletter.
The book touches on topics of specific interest to the publishing industry and other book promoters or sellers.
The book can be found HERE on the COS website.

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 02:08:00 +0000

Sun, 24 Feb 2008 05:48:00 +0000

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 23:09:00 +0000

The newest, most trendy thing to discuss in technical and social media news is whether or not social networking sites are going to live up to the hype for ad revenue. With popular social media sites either being bought for millions or totally forgotten to go down in flames, it seems hard to predict which will succeed or how they will succeed.

Revver.com which was once in the top 20 of best social media sites is now looking to prostitute itself out to the highest bidder. The company doesn’t seem able to bring in the revenue to keeps itself afloat and no new ideas are forthcoming. The once popular site may be no more by the end of the year. The question is, why isn’t someone picking it up? With a built in user and content provider loyalty to the site, why won’t someone pick it up for small amount of half a million dollars when sites like MySpace and Bebo are reportedly worth several millions or more.

Businesses came in, guns blazing, or is that, ads playing? Some tried to join in the social media community, just to be flamed, and some came in thinking they would force feed ads. Facebook has struggled with their endeavors to get buy-in from the community for its revenue building ideas. And the idea that social media participants are immune to ads is not new as evidenced by this article in BusinessWeek (http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/feb2008/tc2008024_252834.htm).

Businesses are missing the point of a social network online environment. They only see a revenue opportunity. You can’t walk into a close-knit community of friends and interrupt their play with your ad. Everyone seems to understand that online ads and television ads don’t work the same way, yet they continue to try the same ploys, with disappointing consequences. People do not want to be interrupted while they socialize. They don’t want to be force fed ads.

There are a few ideas on how to re-approach social media advertising.

1. Build an interactive ad that allows viewers to manipulate the ad themselves, thus making it more like a game and more engaging. If this is done with an artistic and clever ad people could mash-up the ad and share it, or submit to for a contest. Mash-up are acceptable in social media, ads could be “mashable” and fit in better to the community structure.

2. Create new and engaging features and have a pay-for-service level.

3. Create a community hall where people can come and talk about what they want to see done in their community. Then, give that new feature or “fix” a price and create a community goal to meet that price.

4. Have a store where people can create their own t-shirts, posters, etc. from elements of their own page or from the community. Every community has a store. It could prove to be fun as well as revenue generating.

5. Use the more popular blogs on news and magazine sites. Find out where ads are getting good click through and instead of placing an ad next to a blog, place a blog next to an ad. Every keeps putting ads next to material, but if you have access to the material, you could send the material to the ad. For example, if you have a page where you have a lot of car ads you can create a spot near the ad where RSS feeds can go that has the headlines of popular blogs on MySpace (or wherever) where the blogs are talking about cars. Send the content to the appropriate ad. These sites have some great blogs. Some great videos. Some great content. Yet, they don’t utilize it to its fullest potential.
Google could do this with great success. Have an ad in one area, put content near it, when they go to the content have that same ad there too.

Thinking outside the box is what will solve this problem. Continuing to try and force feed a social community is only going to irritate that community. Is that the feeling companies want tied to their brand? I’m going to go out on a limb here and say, “No”.

As long as businesses treat social media communities as a business advertising vehicle they will continue to see poor performance.

Sat, 16 Feb 2008 19:04:00 +0000

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 04:13:00 +0000

If you haven't already subscribed to the COS YouTube this might entice you. The leading producer of book trailers and video distribution will be vlogging industry news on their YouTube site each month. Some of the information is basic industry news about trends and marketing, but some will be tips and tricks like the new offering on YouTube.



The industry news segments are kept on YouTube for a limited time. At some point this year they will be housed on the COS Resources site with other videos such "How To" videos.

You can check out the first segment of the industry vlog here on the COS YouTube site. But it will come donw some time on Wednesday. This is to encourage people to subscribe to the COS YouTube site. Subscribers and Friends get bulletins or emails each time COS uploads a video. This gives subscribers a chance to go over and view the video and take advantage of the advice or industry trend news.

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 15:23:00 +0000

It's almost completed. So far there are 40 pages and there will be at least another 10 before it is done. The upcoming ebook will be sent out via the COS newsletter, MySpace bulletin and eventually will be placed on the resources section of the new COS website.

Though the ebook touches on some other types of promotional tools it's main focus is on digital video, distribution, video utilization and marketing opportunities.

Here is an excerpt from the unedited version of the ebook-






Your book video is a tool. It’s like any other tool, it needs to be used correctly in order for it to work. These elements need to be in place for your book video to be the most effective tool it can be –

1. Well produced, entertaining video
2. Formatted correctly for placement/distribution
3. Distributed correctly
4. Monitored to establish effectiveness

Producing a quality, entertaining video is just part of the overall process. COS Productions uses a beta testing system that allows for reviewers to rate our videos. We start the survey off by asking, “What is this book about?” There are several questions of that nature that gives us insight to how well we’re doing. “Well produced” means getting your idea across just as it means having an aesthetically pleasing video. I’ve watched many videos that last three or four minutes and I’m never really sure what the book is about. I know there’s a lot of naked people in it though! LOL

Before you start creating your video you need to know what you’re going to do with it. What do you want it to do for you? Have goals in mind so that you can better determine whether or not your book video was successful.

I’ve seen a lot of posts detailing how a book video should be made. Some of those are good and some of them are not. If you take someone’s advice on how to make your video you need to watch some of the videos that person made first.

Here’s some instructions and tips for those of you who want to make your own video-

1. Set your goal. What do you hope to accomplish with this video? Be realistic in your goal. “Sell a million books” is NOT realistic. “Get my name out there for people to see” is a realistic goal. “Have my book video picked up by a bookseller” is a realistic goal.

2. Ask yourself where this video will play. If it is for online use only you don’t have to be too exact in the length of the video. You don’t have to worry about formatting to fit a screen. But, if you plan on showing your video on a television screen, you need to think ahead and format it to fit. If you plan on putting it on a movie screen you need to be using the highest quality pictures or stock footage. What looks good on your computer screen might not look so great on a 40 foot movie screen.

3. Write your text for the video. Don’t make it too long. Don’t use your back cover copy. You want to entice the viewer to find out more. If you use the back cover copy you’ve taken away another enticement that you could give a potential reader. Determine the conflict of the characters and of the story. Don’t give away any secrets! Nothing irritates me more than to see a book video that tells what the ending of the book is. Thanks! I don’t need to buy that book now.

4. Once you write the text, have someone critique it. If they read it will they know what the book is about? Ask them to tell you what the book is about just from the text. Remember that the visuals can tell part of the story too. So, if they get most of it, you’re doing okay. Just fill in the blanks with whatever visuals you choose.

5. Choose the visuals for the video. This can be stock photos, stock footage, black screen, motionloops, etc. Don’t have so many pictures that people spend their time trying to figure out what the pictures are and they miss the text. Don’t put so much text on the screen that people can’t see the image behind it. And, if you do have a lot of text on the screen, please leave it up there long enough for slower readers to read it all.

6. Sound effects and music. There are a lot of great places to find royalty free sound effects and music. www.shockwave-sound.com is a perfect place to find those things at a reasonable rate. Be sure you read the license agreement and follow that. I have heard popular music used in book video. There’s even a company out there that used some popular music on a book video they created for an author, so please be careful. I have done cost analysis for popular music and can say with some authority that most people won’t pay that much to include popular music. It would, most likely, cost more than what you pay to have the entire video made.
You do want to spend a little extra time working on the audio for your book video. The music should reflect the kind of video it is. Here is a great example of the proper use of music for a book video-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1dnOyb47K0

7. You’ve assembled your text, visuals, sound effects (if you want them) and music. Now you need to put them on the timeline and create your masterpiece! Be careful to have your font size large enough to read. And the font doesn’t have to be fancy. It has to be readable.

8. Transitions. Transitions are where you fade from one picture to the next. People get pretty creative with transitions. Please don’t. It’s a sure sign of an amateur. If you want to do something other than a simple fade in- fade out please keep it simple and don’t do it too often. The same goes with making your words do special little tricks. Your words don’t need to dance, unless dancing words is part how you get your story across. If your story is about dancing, then maybe I could see it. If you just have to make the words do something exciting please keep it simple and don’t do it too often.

9. Appropriateness. If you’re going to play your video in any public arena please give some thought to the pictures you choose to put in your video. And give some thought as to the content of your text as well. I’m all for Freedom of Speech. I am also all for having some class. If you want me to NEVER pick up your book or recommend it then by all means, play your nearly-X-rated video in front of my 6 year old daughter. Give some thought as to where you want to play your video.

10. Formatting. If you’re looking for quality then I would format to mov (Quicktime). But those files are larger and take longer to upload. If you’re looking for quick and easy then format to wmv (Windows Media). The wmv files are find, but blown up big on the computer screen it starts to look pixilated. If you’re going straight to flash that’s great, but some sites can’t upload flash.

11. Distribution. Send it everywhere. Why not? You’ve got nothing to lose but a little of your time. Think about what your initial goal was for the video. Where do you need to distribute this video in order to attain your goal?


There are a variety of topics discussed in the ebook and we encourage you to sign up for the COS Newsletter to get the ebook soonest.

Sun, 13 Jan 2008 08:57:00 +0000

It’s hard to sell something creative when most creative is subjective. Recently we did an online survey of our videos. We chose one video from each of our editors and created a survey. If you ever want to do a survey of your readers or clients, Survey Monkey is a very valuable service. We use surveys as one part of our quality improvement and assessment commitment. It was interesting to see that so many people participated and there was such variety in their opinions. Something we discovered that was interesting was that many of our participants, which were made up of readers and booksellers, were most influenced by the genre of the video.
Overall, each of the videos did well, but there were opinions that conflicted over music and visual elements. The video that had the worst marks was also the video that 80% of the participants voted the as the best video. It was almost as though they were harder on the video they thought was the best.It made me wonder how this could happen. It all came down to the preference of the viewer. Not just the quality of the video, but genre of the video was most important overall. So, one can conclude that, if someone doesn’t like a video, it may have nothing at all to do with how the video looks or what the message is.

In 2003, when Borders Group put the first book trailer, Dark Symphony, up on their site, no one really knew how book trailers would eventually turn into a market of their own. Now that they seem almost commonplace people see them less as a cool novelty and more as an expected entertainment or advertisement. With the newness wearing off people are becoming more critical and demanding of quality and clarity. Slideshows slapped together with text taking up the entire screen is not going to be acceptable anymore.
More and more people are turning to professionally made content. Not only are authors and publishers turning to professionally made content, but so are distributors of online content.The book trailer market has become established. With growing online demand for entertainment and news, the book video market has solidified its place in most marketing campaigns.


There is a shift in 2008 from just having a book video to maximizing the effectiveness of book video. Distribution and analytics are the name of the game now. If you aren’t a major player in those categories, you aren’t looking toward the future of the market. Distribution doesn’t just mean uploading to YouTube, MySpace and the like. That’s now expected. Back in early 2006, we were impressing people with our 10 distribution sites that went with each product. Now, in 2008, we have well over 200 distribution sites and have branched out into genre-specific placement of video. You must realize that if everyone is uploading to the top 10 or 20 video share sites, then your video is now in competition with thousands of others. It’s not just competing with other book video, but with other online video entertainment. Either you need to somehow grow your own YouTube-type sites, or start partnering with specialty sites that will take your video as content. You need to investigate online content provider companies that will send your content out to entertainment sites like SciFi Channel or Oxygen Network.

Analytics are going to be key in 2008 as well. `What are analytics? Analytics is the measurement and analysis of how something did, in this case, online video. This includes information such as: who is watching the video, where they were referred from, how long they watched the video, and whether they shared it? Demographic and geographic information can be important for many reasons:

Knowing if your book is read more by men or women can help you determine how to develop the look of your website.
Knowing that your video is very popular in a particular state or city can help you determine where to do a book signing or what booksellers you need to become more friendly with.
Knowing what state or city your video is popular in can help determine where you should do media buys.

There are more reasons why this information is important and a variety of ways to utilize the information for future campaigns. Targeting your audience, localizing your target and being able to pinpoint your best opportunities for sales in a given area is going to make your marketing budget dollar work harder for you. After all, a book video isn’t designed to get hits on YouTube, it is designed to sell books. When you can do both, then you have an effective marketing tool worth investing in.

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 09:28:00 +0000

More and more readers are turning to YouTube to find book trailers and many content providers/publishers are uploading there.
COS Productions has seen an increase in hits and subscribers over the last two months. You can check out the COS YouTube channel HERE.
You can see the progress over the last few weeks -

It's exciting to see trailers growing in popularity on the top social networks!

Sun, 06 Jan 2008 22:03:00 +0000

It will be a busy week for COS Productions' CEO Sheila Clover English as COS sets out to start 2008 with a bang! Starting tomorrow Sheila will be in Arizona meeting with productions partners, then over to work with the distribution manager then off to Mexico to get some stock photos and footage for the upcoming Hispanic Station on REC TV. COS will be offering Hispanic trailers in 2008! Next week Sheila is off to New York City to meet with publishers and booksellers! She will also be signing up a new production partner who will do shoots in NYC. Before spring the plan is to make it over to Ann Arbor to meet with the good folks at Borders Group! So it's going to be a very busy time for COS! In the meantime, check out the new Video Book Reviews Sheila is doing for REC TV!

Wed, 02 Jan 2008 06:18:00 +0000

Did you know that you can subscribe to COS videos on YouTube?


When you sign up for COS on YouTube you will recieve a notice when new videos are uploaded! This is an easy way to fing book trailers, author interviews, book reviews and more! You don't have to go search them out, they come right to you!

Love a particular video? You can put the URL link from that video on your automated signature! Promote your favorite author every time you send an email, but without being intrusive. People will see the link under your name and can choose to check it out if they want!

Want your very own player? Contact COS at info@cosproductions.com and let us know what you would like and where it will be playing. Our technical team will help you set up your own COS YouTube player! The new videos will automatically upload to your site. You won't have to do anything but enjoy the view!

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 09:22:00 +0000

Our staff photographer, Jen Henderson, brought some great photos over tonight of the shoot. Many of these will go up on Christine's site when I write the article about the trailer. But, I thought I would put up a few for those of you who are following the blog.

Brian Schell did a wonderful job as our hero Jesse Calhoun. I did a little mini-interview with him that you can find in a previous blog here.

I was very happy with Brian's performance. This was his first acting experience. In "real life" he is in law enforcement, and he does modeling on the side. I really thought he made a perfect Ghostwalker!

Lauren was a wonderful heroine but was a little shy. She was able to overcome that long enough to do the kissing scenes though. Yes...she made that sacrafice just for you! Isn't she so sweet?! LOL

Lauren says she really enjoyed the fight scenes the most, but those kissing scenes can't be all THAT bad, right? LOL

The two made a great couple and really matched the character descriptions from the book. Saber is very petite and young looking and Jess is large and very masculine. I was so happy with the way their characters came across on film.

Lauren did a scene where Saber is sent to assasinate a senator and that scene turned out so great!!! You'll see some other party-goers and those extras are some friends of the family and some are Christine's daughters. You may recognize them from the many Drake Sister trailers we've done.

The man playing the senator in the scene is Christine's son Mark. He also played the villain in Safe Harbor. Mark is an experienced martial arts expert and helped to choreograph the fight scenes with Christine. Plus...he looks hot in a suit so we just had to use him in the trailer! LOL

We've got literally hundreds of pictures from this shoot. Some are behind the scenes and some are of the scenes being acted out. Keep an eye out for the Behind The Scenes article that will go up on Christine's site by the first of the year!

Mon, 10 Dec 2007 03:59:00 +0000

It's a wrap! We have completed the Predatory Game shoot and are now back at the studio sampling in the footage. We'll go through it tomorrow and start editing.
I have two more video blogs for you. Here is one with the star, Brian Schell who had a slight mishap with his jacket during the shoot that he will tell you about.

It was very fun and very interesting to work with Christine. As most of you know she taught self-defense and martial arts. She worked to choreograph the fight scenes for both the hero and the heroine. I took some footage of her working with Lauren, then I got some of Domini working with Lauren again right before the actual shoot.

This has been really fun blogging during the shoot. If we get enough interest in these blogs we will do another one for our next trailer, which is a Drake Sisters trailer next month.

Thank you!

Sun, 09 Dec 2007 07:59:00 +0000

Hi all!

We got day one of two done with the shoot for the book trailer! It went really well and Brian Schell is such a great guy...and very funny too!
Christine helped with the fight scenes and we have one more tomorrow that she will help us with!
This has been a big production with a lot of extra actors, big effects and lots of fighting. Very cool stuff!
Christine answered all of the questions you asked. Yes, she answered the one about Barrack and Syndil too. lol :-)

I put her answers in smaller snippets so those of you with dial up can view them easier.

Blog 1 above. We finished the work for the day and were so tired! We sat back and relaxed a little and talked about the blog and how fun it was.

Blog 2

You can see Christine's little dogs running around and begging for attention. They didn't care if we were doing an interview. They don't blog and were totally unconcerned with my deadline! LOL

This has been so fun! Please leave any comments or questions by Sunday night. We will leave at that time and won't get a chance to interview Christine for another month!

Sat, 08 Dec 2007 06:25:00 +0000

Here we are. Day 3 of the pre production for Predatory Game Book Trailer. We start the shoot tomorrow!

Michael Miller answers questions that YOU sent!

Hear some of the answers I give about casting, Brian and more!

This is about a 8-10 minute video, so if you have dial up it may be hard to watch. I know Christine is going to have these put on MySpace at some point, which may be easier to watch, but give it a try here. And don't forget to send in your comments and questions!

I got to Christine's today, but it's very busy right now and late. I got to see and chat with Brian Schell. He is very nice and I'm looking forward to working with him tomorrow.

Christine is ready to answer your questions and we'll do her interview/vlog tomorrow some time.

Wish us luck on tomorrow's FIRST DAY OF THE SHOOT!

Fri, 07 Dec 2007 08:13:00 +0000

Well, day 2 of pre production is done. We worked all day on getting wardrobe and making or buying props. We have made a smoke bomb (no...not a real one, but it looks cool!) to go with our gas masks that we bought last week!

Thank you to Anne and Denise for sending questions. I answered them in the video above. Semet, thank you as well! We'll get to ask Christine questions tomorrow!

I have to see if my new little camcorder ( I got the new Flip) will work at Christine's place on her computer. If not, I'll have to upload the next set of videos on Saturday when Mike brings his portable editor over.

Above is a little snippet of our crew meeting for Day 2 of pre production for the book trailer. It lasted about 2 hours (you see about 3-4 minutes of that)and we'll re-group again tomorrow to make sure all assignments are complete and ready to go for the Saturday and Sunday shoot.

The thumbnail you see above is of Jacob Henderson who does our special make up, special effects and lots of other important jobs. The main person speaking is our special and visual effects guru Michael Miller. Mike hates to be in front of the camera, so I didn't tell him that I was filming him. LOL shhhhhh....don't tell him! LOL

I hope to get more comments and questions for tomorrow's meeting with Christine and for anyone on the cast and crew!

Thu, 06 Dec 2007 04:50:00 +0000

Christine Feehan's newest installment of the Ghostwalker, or "Game", series is entitled Predatory Game.
Predatory Game has Ghostwalker Jesse Calhoun and mysterious Saber Wynter paired together as someone seeks to stop Jesse's investigation and capture Saber. You'll learn more as the week progresses.
But, for now, we want to invite YOU to participate in the this blog by sending questions to the director, actors, crew, or even to Christine Feehan herself!
Watch our Vlogs (video blogs) that give you little glimpses of how we prepare to do the book trailer for a novel.

Leave your questions in the comments section of this blog. We will check the comments every day and answer questions either in writing or on video.

We will interview Christine sometime on Friday, so please have questions for her by then. We may not be able to get to all of the quetions with the video, but we'll do our best to get you answers eventually in writing.

What would YOU like to know?

Now, check out day 1 of pre-production as we speak to Lauren and look at wardrobe.

Lauren is a sweet, beautiful, slightly shy girl who thinks kicking bad-guy butts is still womanly! Woohoo! Go Lauren!

Sun, 25 Nov 2007 22:06:00 +0000

Cue the James Bond music and call the Geek Squad! If you like your espionage with thrills, romance and a touch of humor look no further! Lucy Monroe, internationally best selling author, brings us sensuality and sass with her new high-tech action romance called “Deal With This”.

It’s lights, camera, action as this novel brings the reader inside the Vancouver film industry. It’s a fun look at the industry itself while taking you through a rollercoaster ride of spy action and hot romance. The book is lighthearted but intensely researched for believability. There’s no doubt that the romance and sass will satisfy as much as the action and technology.

Michelle Buonfiglio of Lifetime TV's Romance: B(u)y the Book says Monroe "excels at creating alpha bad boys and authentic erotic romance." The love scenes sizzle and the characters are the highlight of every scene. Her “alpha bad boy” Alan goes undercover to find out who is trying to auction off international secrets and finds himself on the set of scifi TV show with the star of the show, Jillian, set to help him whether he likes it or not!

Monroe is especially pleased with this novel because of the character development of both the hero and heroine. The hero isn’t a typical “alpha male”, but he has layers of complexity to him that allows him to appreciate the heroine’s independence and accept himself without having to be in charge all the time. The heroine is strong, sassy, fun and loveable. She isn’t going to faint at the sight of a gun and she doesn’t mind talking about sex, needs and what she really wants.

Throw in a scifi TV show, producers, spies, anti-gravity planes, costumes and great love scenes and you’ve got a formula for a best selling novel! Deal With This comes out November 27th!

Thu, 13 Sep 2007 13:49:00 +0000

He is a Lord, a master at seduction and a man no one should cross. She is a free spirit and a woman unlike any other in all of England. When her father dies she promises to publish his memoirs, but there's something in those pages that Lord Elliot would do anything to stop from being published. Anything. www.madelinehunter.com

Wed, 22 Aug 2007 06:07:00 +0000

He is caught between two worlds. Caught between the
living and the dead. She is the key to his salvation.
But others would do anything to stop him even if they
must kill her. She has secrets of her own. Powers of
her own. A dark fantasy and sensual story of love and redemption. (more)

Tue, 07 Aug 2007 17:36:00 +0000

Dark fantasy spills into the realm of vampires as

Aleric, The Falconer, escapes his prison to find the

world much changed. Heir apparent to the vampire

throne, he is forced into gladiator vampire fights in

a plague-ridden world. His newest quest brings him to

the ancient home of vampires where he will meet she

who created him - Pythia, now the Lady of Serpents.