I was full of good advice about unboxing videos. Until I had to do one myself.
As every author will know, the unboxing video has become ubiquitous. When the copies of your book arrive at your home for the first time, and you open that package and hold them in your hand, it’s now expected that we film this moment and share it with the world.
The first unboxing video I ever saw was of the phenomenal YA author Tomi Adeyemi opening the package of her debut novel Children of Blood and Bone. It was new. It was raw. It was full of unfiltered emotion - a life spent dreaming of this, culminating in a beautiful, relatable moment. There was not a dry eye in the house and the impact was huge.
And somehow, since then, they’ve become background noise. One of the principles of behavioural marketing - the practice of using evidence-based behavioural science to inform marketing choices - is that: ‘You’re hard-wired to notice what’s distinctive.’ (Richard Shotton.) Things that are different are more likely to get engagement. My big advice when it came to unboxings has been: Try and do something distinctive.
Aliya Ali-Afzal filmed a video with her (unbelievably proud) mum - emotional, moving and different. CL Taylor filmed one and was interrupted by her family and dog returning from a rainy walk - funny, real and different.
So, as a writer who’s also a comms pro, when it came to my own unboxing video, the pressure was on. I needed to find something distinctive. I loved the idea of filming with someone else, someone who’d be excited and proud of me. But who? I know my husband is proud of me, but he’s very reserved - especially if you point a camera at him - and he would definitely come across as bored by the whole thing. Not the right vibe. I choose not to put my children on public-facing social media. My sisters would’ve been a cool option - but one of them selfishly lives 350 miles away. I kept waiting for inspiration to strike… It always does. But it didn’t.
My books arrived. My lovely postman let me take a photo of him standing, bemused, in my doorway with the world’s most momentous jiffy bag. And then I went for a walk, leaving the unopened bag on my kitchen table.
I’m glad I went for that walk because the truth hit me. Unboxing videos don’t matter. I say that as someone who passionately believes that book marketing does matter, a lot. In my view, writers and publishers should take as much responsibility for finding and connecting with readers as they do producing high quality books. But I’ll say it again… unboxing videos don’t matter. Not in the grand scheme of things, and not compared to experiencing the moment when it comes to these milestones.
The reason Tomi Adeyemi knocked my socks off with her video was because she conveyed how much this meant to her. She’d wanted to be a published novelist all her life and her dream was coming true. And who else was this true of? Err… me.
I owed it to 10-year-old Anna scribbling ‘my novel’ in notebooks to take this all in. My focus needed to be the fact that A BOOK WITH MY NAME ON THE COVER now existed. My focus did not need to be how I could film an interesting, distinctive, behavioural science-backed video of that moment.
I decided to set up my camera on a tripod, not plan anything, and just open the bloomin’ package. I didn’t have to feel or convey anything in particular, but neither should I stifle myself or feel embarrassed (easier said than done - but I got over this by deciding I may well just not post one at all if I didn’t like it.)
The result - my un-bagging video (here on Instagram) - wasn’t exciting and it wasn’t innovative. But it was certainly real. I started talking about my husband’s bike for some reason, made some very strange noises, and a bit of a swear popped out. But the response has been lovely. Absolutely lovely. From friends who work in comms and marketing as well as those who don’t.
This video isn’t going to set the world on fire - but I can do that with other activity. It captures the moment I held a book with my name on it in my hand for the first time. I didn’t do it for Anna the marketing pro, I did it for Anna the 10-year-old.
My journey to publication is developing how I think about book marketing in all sorts of ways. I’ve always loved to combine my comms expertise with my understanding of being a writer. But I’m now also becoming more and more interested in the broader picture - the emotional and practical sides of being an author, how we take care of ourselves and find ways to enjoy this life.
And the wonderful thing is, exploring this is actually opening up new book marketing possibilities, but done with a real focus on what will work for each individual, and sometimes eschewing what we’re told we ‘should’ be doing.
So, maybe I’m still full of good advice about unboxing videos. It’s just different advice now. Enjoy the moment - really take in this hard-won and absolutely phenomenal achievement. Please focus on that. You did it - it is real. If you manage to capture some of that enjoyment and emotion in a video, awesome. But if you don’t - there are literally hundreds of other ways to find readers, so don’t sweat it.
If you’d like to work with me one-to-one on any element of your writer branding, marketing and finding readers for your work, there’s more information about how that works here.
If you’d like to join Book Launchpad 2026 - a supportive cohort of writers working towards their launch or other milestone together, there’s more information about that here.