YouTube: An Insider's Guide to Climbing the Charts (Paperback)

by Alan Lastufka (Author), Michael W. Dean (Author)
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Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Want to make a splash on YouTube? Even go viral? You've come to the right place. This book is written by two veteran 'Tubers who live their art and know what they're talking about -- especially Alan Lastufka, a.k.a. "fallofautumndistro," who has over 10,000 YouTube subscribers and millions of views. Alan and co-author Michael W. Dean show you how to make a quality video, and how to optimize, encode, upload, and promote it. This book can't promise you'll be rich and famous, but it can tell you how to make great video art, and what you need to do to get your work seen. You'll learn about:

• Storytelling and directing
• Shooting, editing, and rendering
• Creating your very own channel
• Broadcasting user-generated content
• Re-broadcasting commercial content
• Cultivating a devoted audience
• Fitting into the YouTube community
• Becoming a success story

Join Alan, who makes part of his living from YouTube, and Michael, a successful filmmaker, author, and D.I.Y. art pioneer. They'll take you from the basics of gear to making it big on YouTube, with a focus on networking and interaction. You'll also sit in on informative interviews with YouTube stars LisaNova, Hank Green (vlogbrothers), WhatTheBuckShow, nalts, and liamkylesullivan.

Alan and Michael understand viral marketing -- and they know what it takes to get your work on everyone's YouTube radar. And, once you read this book, so will you.

About the Author
Alan Lastufka a.k.a. fallofautumndistro (YouTube user name), is one of the Top 100 Most Subscribed Comedians on YouTube. His YouTube videos have had more than three million total views. One of his early short films received multiple airings on the Independent Film Channel.

On YouTube, Lastufka is widely praised for his collaboration videos. One of the most popular is the "iPwn" iPhone parody commercial, starring MadTV cast member LisaNova (as well as some narration at the end that was engineered and produced by Michael Dean).

CNN and YouTube held presidential debates on national television comprised solely of questions submitted by YouTubers via video. On July 23, 2007 U.S. Senator Christopher J. Dodd (D-Connecticut) made a YouTube video response answering a question on the subject of Net Neutrality submitted by Alan Lastufka: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiiCR0USyJg

Lastufka has contributed articles to numerous international magazines and zines, while co-running a popular independent publishing project in Chicago, IL.: www.fallofautumn.com

Alan is currently a teacher and skills coach for a non-profit social services agency.

Michael W. Dean is a filmmaker/author/musician/podcaster who directed the films "D.I.Y. or DIE: How To Survive as an Independent Artist" and "Hubert Selby Jr: It/ll Be Better Tomorrow" and wrote the book "$30 Film School." He has toured the US and Europe extensively, lecturing at youth centers, colleges, and museums on the subject of D.I.Y. (do-it-yourself) art production and promotion.

Dean has written for Make Magazine, writes for the O'Reilly Digital Media site and runs the pop culture blog, StinkFight.com. He was a contributor to the book "Digital Video Hacks," and edited "DV Filmmaking: From Start to Finish" (both from O'Reilly).

Product Details

• Paperback: 301 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc.; illustrated edition edition (November 28, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0596521146
• ISBN-13: 978-0596521141
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #96,518 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Don't watch the media, be the media, February 20, 2009

By	Allen Stenger (Alamogordo, NM USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a thorough introduction to creating videos for YouTube, aimed at the absolute beginner. It is especially strong on explaining how to tell a story and on how to behave yourself as part of the YouTube community. The emphasis is on making art, not on making money.

It is not a techie book. There's a long chapter called "99-Cent Film School" that covers the mechanics of creating a video, but it's very basic and deals mostly with the selection of equipment, with some discussion of editing. The book is unusual in that it is not Macintosh-centric: the authors use Windows and claim there's no need to consider Macintosh because Windows is cheaper and has more software.

The authors summarize their position on p. 248 as "Don't watch the media, be the media." This is a good sound bite and gives the flavor of the book, although it is not really accurate since they encourage watching and commenting on the videos of other YouTubers. (Besides, if no one watched the media, would there be any media left?) The authors detest traditional media, especially television, and they detest much of the new media too. This doesn't have much impact on the book, except to cause occasional outbursts of gratuitous nastiness. For example, on p. 244 we read, "Social networking provides websites to people who shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a computer." Although there's some truth in this, it is unnecessary to state it here. The isolation from other media also gives the impression that YouTube is its own universe, with no connection to anything else.

The nastiness comes out in concentrated form in the Preface, which attempts to explain "Why You Should Buy This Book" by trashing the competition. Be sure to skip this section of the book! It's not representative of the rest and reading it will turn you off from an otherwise-good book.

There are a number of rough spots that could have been improved by better copy-editing. The book is somewhat rambling. Although it does explain all the YouTube and computer jargon, it may use a term many times before defining it. For example, the term "partner" is used throughout the book but is not explained until Chapter 11. The index is often no help; "partner" is not in the index as such (you have to look under YouTube Partners), and acronyms such as RSS and NLE are not indexed at all.

YouTube URLs are cryptic pseudo-random character strings, and a Very Good Feature of the book is that the authors have placed every URL as a hyperlink on one page on their web site, so you just have to click it. This is not quite as good as feature as it could be, because the cryptic URLs on that page are not annotated other than with a cross-reference number such as "URL 9.3"; if each had a short description or title the page would be easier to navigate and would also be great for browsing.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Everything for a newcomer, everything for an old-timer, February 8, 2009

By	Melissa D. Anelli "melissaanelli" (New York, NY) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I know very little about YouTube - or, at least, I did, before reading this. I missed the growth of YouTube as a phenomenon for self-made videographers, and as such only knew the basics: You can upload, you can subscribe, and it's fun. Reading this book got me up to speed instantly: I learned about subscriber etiquette, how to legitimately make better videos and expand my userbase, and most importantly how to keep on having fun doing it. The title is apt: "An Insider's Guide." Alan and Michael have clearly spent a great deal of time inside YouTube, learning its tricks on a very micro level, and distribute them with clear writing and relaxed wit. Highly recommended!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Real emphasis on promoting your videos, February 18, 2009

By	Mikhail Portnov (Mountain View, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The book is unique in its focus on how to use networking capabilities of YouTube. It does not say much about YouTube technicalities.

I absolutely fall in love with the book after reading the chapter 14 (Closing Arguments), written by Michael. I wish I start reading the book with that chapter.

First half of the book is an overkill (IMHO) of promoting the authors and their credentials. I already like them after first page and trust them. What is the reason to repeat exact same arguments again and again? Also, being that much negative about other books and authors interferes with enjoying the book. I was literally under impression that each page of the first 100 pages talks about bad guys and good guys writing books.

Overall impression: it is the most enjoyable book of that genre in my life!!!!