BookTV.nz set to bring video book reviews, author interviews to the web

I’ve been working on a project called BookTV.nz, a book video channel on YouTube with reviews and author interviews done in a web-friendly style, easy to share to spread the word about good books. It’s ready to go live and we’re starting with some great video clips of New Zealand and international authors from last week’s Auckland Writers and Readers Festival.

The first one, Australian Thomas Keneally, is online now. I’ve embeded it at the end of this post. I know you’ll enjoy it, he’s very engaging and they’re not your standard interview questions. There are 14 more great interviews to come with some wonderful authors (see the full list below). They’re in post production at the moment and we’ll get them online as soon as they’re done, over the course of the next few days. Thanks a million to Susanna Andrew of the Book Council and Lily Richards of Unity Books Auckland who helped us with this project.

Here’s the list of author video clips from the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival that we’ll be posting over the coming days.

John Carey, Jill Dawson, Charlie Higson, Thomas Keneally, Yiyun Li, Sarah Thornton, Colm Toibin, William Taylor, Anna MacKenzie, Elizabeth Smither, Tessa Duder, Alison Wong, Paula Morris

So that you don’t miss them—or any of the other videos coming up such as book reviews from some of our top booksellers—there are various ways to follow bookTV.nz and get notified of the latest video clips as they’re posted.

You can follow us on Twitter (twitter.com/booktvnz), Facebook (booktv.co.nz/facebook), YouTube (youtube.com/booktvnz), or via email or RSS using a news reader such as Google Reader. If you go to bookTV.co.nz, there are links to all of these options.

These are internet-friendly video clips that can be easily shared and used. You can embed them in online catalogues or web pages, link to them in newsletters or emails, post them to Facebook pages and so on. If you’re not familiar with how to do this, we’ve put some basic info on booktv.co.nz to get you started. Among other things, we’ll be making them available to publishers and to booksellers to give them much richer information about books and authors when readers visit their sites.

Speaking of booksellers, our best booksellers are often the people who uncover the reading gems first so I’ve asked a few of them to do video reviews of their picks for what’s worth reading at the moment. Doris Mousdale from Arcadia Books in Newmarket, Carole Beu from Women’s Bookshop, Lily Richards from Unity Auckland and Gail Woodward from Dymocks Newmarket have all kindly agreed to help so watch out for their reviews (there are a few reviews online already and more coming). We’ve set up a studio in Newmarket, Auckland, which is central and easy to get to. If any reviewers out there are interested in giving video a go, call or drop me a note, or DM me on Twitter @nztaylor.

So, I hope you enjoy it. Go and sign up now to the bookTV.nz channel and we’ll keep you up to date with some great reading (via video).

Enjoy:-)