Best Seller Authors

Book Marketing, Publishing, Author Resources

Three Sure Fire Ways to Attract Readers

No matter what topic you write about, putting it in terms that your readers want to hear will always have more appeal.

These three are strong buying motives. When you talk about your book, write descriptions, advertising copy or get interviewed about your book, keep in mind that potential readers are more interested in the outcome they can get from reading than the contents of your book.

When you speak in terms of a positive outcome for them, you’ll be much more likely to get attention, interest and sales from the conversation. Putting your best foot forward is stating benefits in the way your reader wants to hear.

Make sure you state the benefits in a way that covers one of these three whenever you can

Make Money

salesgraphCan your readers or clients get more money if they follow your advice?  Tell them.

Don’t assume they know this… spell it out.

“reading this blog will give you specific advise to sell more books, and convert readers into buyers”

Be as specific as you can. Tell the story of a successful outcome of a past reader or client.

“One author I worked with used his book to land a million dollar consulting contract”

Most everyone wants more money. If you have a business topic, this is obvious, but you might also show the dollars and cents someone can get from better health or habits, that they get from reading your book.

Save Money

moneybagMaking money is attractive. Saving money can be nearly as powerful.

“Using my promotion strategy, one author cut his publicity budget by 65% while landing on a national best seller list and getting three times as many leads in a month”

Again, be as specific as possible. You can make saving money the focus of your book, like Brandi Funk did with “Cut Your Health Care Cost Now” where she sites examples of people getting massive discounts on hospital bills, and provides resources for any family wanting quality health care at an affordable price.

You can use save money in many ways. Staying fit reduces medical costs. Motivation make you more productive, saving time and money.

Better Life

happyRegardless of how much money someone can make or save, the outcome from reading your book, or busying your services will no doubt help someone have a better life.

This is where every author can add value to their books, products or other services.

Once again, don’t assume that people know this. I’ve talked to hundreds of authors who decide to write a book to share their story, give back to the world, or share an important message. When you live the topic, you know how important it can be.. but most of your readers will be buying your book without that experience. Very seldom that someone will purchase thinking they know as much as  you Smile

Spell it out. Make sure your readers know how reading your book or engaging your business will positively affect their lives.

When they know, they’ll be more apt to buy. It’s as simple as that.

What Makes a Good Story?

storytelling.gifI’ve been reading the work of JD Lasica and came across a link to Digital Storytelling: A Tutorial in 10 Steps

The whole piece is good, but step one is a great place to start for any author who wants to share stories:

Step 1: Decide on the Story You Want to Tell

You probably already have a person or subject in mind. Think small. Focus. Don’t get caught up trying to convey all the aspects of someone’s life — you’re not writing the great American novel, you’re creating what will optimally be a three- to five-minute work that recounts a personal tale and reveals a small truth.

What form should your story take? In their decade of leading workshops, Lambert and Mullen list these main varieties of digital stories:

  • The story about someone important. Character stories center on a person who’s touched you in a deep way. Often, these stories reveal as much about the narrator as about the subject of the piece. Memorial stories pay tribute to someone who passed on but left a lasting impression.
  • The story about an event in your life. Travel stories — stories about a personal journey or passage — can be effective if they result in the narrator being transformed by the experience in some way. Accomplishment stories about achieving a goal, graduating from school, or winning an honor can easily fit into the framework of the desire-struggle-realization structure of a classic story.
  • The story about a place in your life. Our sense of place serves as the focal point of a great many profound stories.
  • The story about what I do. People find value in their work, hobbies, or social commitments and can weave wonderful stories from their experiences in each.
  • Recovery stories. Sharing the experience of overcoming a tragedy, challenge, or personal obstacle is an archetype that always has the potential to move audiences.
  • Love stories. We all want to know how someone proposed, met a spouse, experienced the birth of a first child, or came to terms with a parent. Exploring these kinds of relationships helps affirm our own.
  • Discovery stories. These stories probe how we uncovered a truth or learned how to do something.

Now, choose one type of story that appeals to you.

Where Do Best Selling Authors Get Their Ideas?

We talk often about social networking and social media to market your book.

Sometimes, I think authors suppose that these are good for promotion, and something that you switch on after your book is released. That may have been possible in the past, but is not the smart move today.

Not only do I strongly recommend that you start building relationship and your brand online today.. there is research out that show you’ll have a better book with better ideas, a richer experience and more fun.

Steve Johnson has great ideas.

He has been working on ideas and innovation for the past few years and now has a book Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation 

I hold that the connectivity that has increased in our capacity to generate new ideas at a faster rate than ever before. While there is still much benefit from closeting yourself off to contemplate, I suggest you find a balance where you use the power of collaboration in all you do.

Collaboration and networking are a part of every Best Seller Roadmap I do. Start building relationships, your online network and marketing team the minute you decide to write a book.

What are you doing right now to collaborate more?

What Famous Author Writes Like You?

Every time I see a site that will analyze my writing style, tell me how search engine friend I write or judge my vocabulary level, I get mixed emotions.

imageA bit scared that I’ll be found out.. my skills put down by a machine that tells me I don’t measure up in some way. 🙂

But MOSTLY excited… I love getting tips to write better.

I Write Like told me that a recent blog post was like Dan Brown.

I don’t quite get it.. but it was 30 seconds of fun.

I think Mrs.. Preston, my 4th grade teacher nailed it best. I once told her that I couldn’t write. She kept me in from recess, made me do the assignment and told me “you can write.. you’re just lazy”

Talk TO Your Peeps — Never AT Them

Guest Post by Alan R. Bechtold

The best way to create and publish anything worth sharing — whether you’re writing a book or yakking on the social networks — is to focus on your ideal audience. Someone you can relate to. Someone eager to hear what you have to share.

In marketing, everything begins with focusing on your target market. Publishers and authors often forget this, simply publishing what they figure people who will be interested in and hoping they find it, one way or the other.

Is THIS woman your target audience?

That’s a great way to be a starving artist, but if you also keep a marketing eye toward what you’re doing, you can easily turn every tweet, every Facebook post, every email and every blog post you put out into hard-edged highly effective marketing that pulls people toward you.

This is a central key in moving from the starving artist column over to the successful creative entrepreneur.

I suggested in my best-selling book, Will Work for Fun, that you make yourself your target audience. Focus on a niche that truly interests you. Better still, it should FASCINATE you to the point that you are as voracious about gathering data and information about the subject as anyone on the planet.

Do this correctly, follow the steps I outline in my book, and you can easily do all the marketing research you ever need by simply looking in the mirror now and then.

Your readers and followers will naturally need whatever it is you need, too.

Here’s another tactic that works equally well, ripped straight out of creating characters for fiction:

Find a photo…in a magazine or newspaper, or on a blog or Website…of someone who absolutely LOOKS the part of your ideal targeted reader or follower.

Give the person in your photo a name — preferably one that someone who reads your work or follows you WOULD have (note — children’s names run in historical cycles…Elmer isn’t so popular any more, Heather once was. What was popular for YOUR character when he or she was born?

The more authentic and real your character feels, the more effective this technique is.

Now list your character’s hobbies or interests OUTSIDE of your chosen niche — especially those that would be directly related. Make sure these interests match your target audience’s general tendencies for interests they would list in the "other" column, as well.

Next — stare at the photo a bit and imagine the typical life history and current life situation of your ideal audience member. Build out the background details about the person in your photo.

Use whatever data you can to fill in the details — personal experience, research results, conversations with your current readers — whatever it is you know about your target audience. The character you are creating for the person in the photo you’ve selected should be someone you honestly would enjoy being with and spending time with. You should find yourself wishing you had 10,000 more like him or her reading what you put together. 10 million would be ideal!

Then, before you write or start gathering materials to publish ANYTHING, sit down and stare at the photo for a few minutes. Five maximum. Get to know this person you’ve created — this character who matches your ideal audience so perfectly.

Run all the details about this person’s life and history through your mind while you look deeply into the picture. Imagine his or her wants, desires and needs RIGHT NOW.

Then — write or gather information that fulfills those needs.

You can even write whatever it is you have to say TO this fictional person. Address it like a letter to a very dear friend and SHARE like you would with someone you know and love.

This works very well even if you’re NOT deeply affiliate with the niche you’re reaching out to at the time. The photo with this post, for example — she could be ANYONE’s target audience, depending on the background and life you give her.

As you search for information to gather and bring to this person, keep in mind what he or she would want to know right now. Also remember what he or she would most definitely NOT want to hear at this point.

Then get writing or gathering.

In this age of social publishing, you’ll miss the boat more often than not if you just put your tweets and posts out there with no real clear-cut idea of who you’re trying to please.

When you focus on WHO you are writing to this way, your writing will shift totally way from the "me" focus we so often see in blogging today, to a "YOU" focus that targets exactly your ideal prospect. You’ll also find that writing directly to the person you created will make your writing more appealing.

You’ll definitely find yourself "delivering the goods" more often and you’ll grow a devout following that wants whatever it is you have to offer!

 

image Alan R. Bechtold is the best-selling author of Will Work for Fun: 3 Simple Steps for Turning Any Hobby or Interest Into Cash from John Wiley and Sons books. He’s been successfully publishing and marketing for more than 35 years — more than 25 years online — and now shares all of his wisdom and guidance on Uncle Alan’s Info-Publishing and Marketing Portal.