Potential buyers of your books or related services increasingly look for information on YouTube rather than via a traditional search engine, such as Google. Because of that, you want to post videos on YouTube to promote your titles or business. Among the elements to consider when posting there is the production quality of your video.

The lower the quality of your video – such as being fuzzy or pixelated – the less likely viewers will be to watch it. That probably means they’ll move on to someone else’s video, resulting in a lost sale or client.

To a degree, the quality of the video depends upon the video player that the viewer uses. The element you can control, however, is the quality of the video you uploaded.

You can upload the highest quality video possible by:
• Using the right hardware – A high definition camera with zoom capability and that supports an SD card (to expand your memory capacity) is best. You may need a tripod to ensure stability. All of this is far less expensive than you might imagine, especially if you watch for sales.
• Ensuring you have good lighting – Well-lit videos look far more professional than one that is poorly lit. For indoor shooting, halogen lamps offer an inexpensive solution; if outside, aim for a barely cloudy day to diffuse sunlight while still offering some blue sky.
• Recording the video in high definition – High definition is a minimum screen resolution of 1280 x 760. The ideal screen resolution is 1920 x 1080. Never use standard definition (such as 240p or 360p). Also, maintain a 16:9 aspect ratio for the video.
• Avoiding sound issues – When indoors, eliminate background noises by turning off the radio, television, appliances such as the dishwasher and washing machine/dryer, and all phones, and don’t flush toilets or turn on/off water taps. Don’t record outside on windy days as the mic picks up the whooshing sound.

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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past decade, I’ve helped more than 300 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the 7 Minutes a Day… writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.