Books on YouTube

Books and YouTube sound like a strange combination, but for Swedish book publishers Bonnierförlagen there's nothing strange about it. Since May 2008, the publishing house has had its own channel on YouTube with author interviews, book "trailers" and presentations, attracting hundreds of thousands of views. The channel is regularly updated and there are a total of 138 videos so far. We talked with Sigge Eklund, who is responsible for the Bonnierförlagen YouTube channel.

Q. What is the thinking behind the videos?

A. Before the season's releases, a number of authors visit the marketing department and talk about their books so that the department can get to know the authors and understand the background to their books. At that meeting, it's obvious that no one can make a book come alive more than the person who wrote it. So the idea behind a Bonnier video was to make it possible for consumers to also get the authors' visions of their books, by filming them.

Q. Who looks at the videos?

A. The videos can be found in a number of different places, so we don't know exactly who sees them and where. Aside from YouTube they are also on Expressen's web TV channel and at online book retailers Adlibris and Bokus. On top of that it's becoming more common for bloggers to embed the videos into their blog posts.

Q. How often do you update the channel?

A. Once a week or so.

Q. Who makes the videos?

A. Sometimes we have a production company film them, but often we do it ourselves since it can be very expensive to use a production company. We have a small camera and since the films are only on YouTube and not big, having an absolutely perfect picture quality wasn't so important. When we do them ourselves it's very informal. We just pull the writers aside and talk with them in a conference room, and that usually works well. They know us and they can relax.

Q. Has it worked as expected?

A. When we began with it, it was an experiment to see if anyone would be interested. When our interview with Leif GW Persson quickly passed 10,000 views we realized that the videos were doing well. If someone had said to me that we would have 138 films two years ago, I would never have believed them!