Lights! Action! Webcams!

Lee, New Hampshire, May 18, 2006 - iReadNet launches author video blog using webcams, P2P file sharing, and streaming media to create a quick, easy and inexpensive word-of-mouth platform for book authors. "Nothing sells a book like an author reading," says Kurt Aldag, president and founder of iReadNet, announcing the launch of a video blog for authors called AuthorCams. "AuthorCams offers writers the opportunity to crank up their personal buzz machines with nothing more than a webcam and an Internet connection."

The explosion in the availability of digital video recording devices that can capture smooth video motion at 30 frames per second has given rise to new opportunities for authors to promote their work. Using a simple webcam or inexpensive dvcam, for instance, an author can record sample readings, presentations, book reviews, and commentaries and zip them across the Internet to iReadNet using free file sharing software. iReadNet edits, encodes and uploads the videos to the AuthorCams video blog and sends a link to the author, who can then e-mail it to agents, editors, media, bookstores, family and friends.

Using a combination of search engine marketing, video-on-demand databasing, Google AdWords, RSS feeds, and networking with author book blog, trade association and other industry-related sites, iReadNet has developed a long tail connection to a completely web-based global community of readers, writers, bookstores, and news journalists who all have one thing in common an interest in books and authors. The iReadNet video network registered 10,000 visitors per day on average through the first quarter of 2006, and scored over 1,000,000 hits per month.

"Internet video networking is better word-of-mouth than traditional word-of-mouth ever was," says Aldag, a former book publicity and sales promotion executive at major New York publishing houses in the 80's and 90's who moved to New Hampshire in 1996 to "think outside the box" about ways to promote books and authors more economically and effectively. He launched the first beta iteration of iReadNet in 2002 after three years of market research and development. "With a few targeted e-mails, supported by iReadNet's on-going long tail marketing campaigns and built-in audience," Aldag adds, "an author can acquire a worldwide audience for less than the cost of a cheese, crackers and wine party at your local bookstore."

The AuthorCams video blog is the fifth channel on the iReadNet video book tour and author news network. The others on the network of sites are the iReadNet video book tour channel, the PubBuzz author news and book reports channel, the CooksRead and KidsRead video news channels
covering cookbook and children's book news and author events.

iReadNet's user-friendly, automated system of streaming media servers, interface host, and dynamically linked database is custom-designed to meet the time-critical, cost-sensitive, rich content communications needs of publishers and authors. In March, 2006, the pioneering video networking services provider adapted its own proprietary video book tour and author news networking system to deliver a turnkey "private label" video streaming platform that allows publishers and authors everywhere at any time to easily and cost-effectively manage and display their own video content under their own corporate identity or author brand and seamlessly integrate video content into their existing websites.

Visitors can view over 800 on-demand videos of more than 110 author readings, lectures, interviews and autographing appearances at major book and author events around the world free of charge. iReadNet posts new videos of best-selling and emerging authors every week.