In a guerrilla marketing-style effort to draw attention to my website, I’ve been posting video book reviews to Amazon. Then I got this email:

Dear Kelly:

I happened upon your video reviews on Amazon, then on your website. I love them. What a great idea!

I’ve been thinking about doing some video blogging of my own, but I’m kind of overwhelmed by the technical aspects (which camera to purchase, microphone, etc…) and there is so much info on the internet I can’t figure out what would be best for me. Since I really loved the look of your videos, I thought I might as well ask how she did it!

I typed a quick response explaining my video blogging tools and techniques, but then I started wondering: why not use this as the basis for a new video?

So I got busy filming, explaining and demonstrating all the stuff I wish I knew when I started video blogging.

Video Blogging Tools

As you’ll see in the video, I use three products:

• The Flip MinoHD Camcorder

•  The Zoom H2 Digital Recorder

•  Sony Vegas Movie Studio

For all three products, you’ll need to invest $400 to $500. If that’s out of your budget, I recommend starting with the Flip Cam. (In the video, I’ve included a short video that was shot and edited using only the Flip.)

Editing Your Video Blogs

Sony offers a free one-month trial of Vegas Movie Studio. It might look overwhelming at first, but the internet has a ton of step-by-step tutorial videos to speed up your learning curve.

I learned everything I know about Vegas by watching Montagical’s videos, which go from beginner to advanced and will teach you everything you need to create great video blogs.

Adding Music and Sound

Once you get comfortable with editing, you’ll probably want to start adding music and sound effects. YouTube has been working hard to crack down on illegal song usage, so make sure any music you use is copyright- and royalty-free.

I use Incompetech’s royalty-free MP3s for most of my background music, and SoundSnap for sound effects. (It costs about $2 per file, but it takes less time than searching for a high-quality free one.)

Create and Sell DVDs

Sony also has a program called DVD Architect Studio that I use to create professional-looking DVDs. In fact, I recently helped my mom create her first DVD, a 43-minute watercolor lesson on how to paint seashells.

To produce the DVD, we created several videos using the techniques I describe above, then used DVD Architect to finalize the disc.

Selling the DVDs couldn’t be easier. We use Kunaki, a free service that lets you upload your DVD and set the price for each copy. Kunkai handles the sales, creation and shipping. It then sends the money, minus expenses, to your PayPal account each month.

Kunaki is so cheap because it doesn’t have much customer service, so you must feel comfortable working without much assistance. But I didn’t run into any problems. In fact, I was able to take video clips from the DVD itself and use Sony Vegas to create a sharp-looking commercial.

Those are my video blogging and marketing secrets … what tools do you use to make the process easier? What other questions about video marketing can I answer? Let me know in the comments section below.