Best Seller Authors

Book Marketing, Publishing, Author Resources

Authors. What is Your Story?

I was working with a marketer today who want help selling a book full of tips put together by another marketer hoping to tap into a rich market.

I asked “What is the story?"

We can market a book by and anonymous author.. we can sell a product that contains 102 great tips.. but everything will work better when we establish a story.  Not the story in the book, the story of the author and the reason for the book. That’s a major part of what people buy. Readers want to hear, emulate, or even become part of your story.

The story may be a myth.. but must be true to itself, honest and authentic for the market (readers) you want to reach.

This is one of the many reasons to use a story. Watch this short video and let me know if you agree that life is the story we make it.

Are Your Writing for Tomorrow’s Readers?

New technology will combine eye tracking, always online connections and what we know about the way people read to create Text 2.0 .. text that changes to help you read better.

The most amazing thing about this short video is that there is no technology used that is not currently available today. Everything shown can be done now.

With the pace of technology speeding along as it does, I imagine we’ll be seeing this in a very short time in ebook readers and books of the future

The Top 3 Numbers To Use In Your Headlines

headlines[1]This morning got me thinking about the copywriting secrets that separate the pros from the rest of us.

  1. Testing everything
  2. Bullet Points
  3. Strong Headlines

My friend Thom Scott put out a tweet that mentioned the power of 3, 7 and 10 for making a list when you can’t think of what to blog. I had other plans, and replied that I ought to write a post about the Top 3 numbers… a catchy headline, but I meant it as a joke. I know he’s right though. I’ve tested it.

Next I saw “The Secret To Driving Blog Traffic” by Jason Falls How can you pass up a headline like that? Jason is right, I’ve tested headlines myself and nothing works better to increase readership.

From there I went to Google Reader.. where I have been practicing not reading all the 100’s of posts I get each day, but skimming for the best headlines and subjects, marketing them with a star and   cutting out 80% of the time it was taking to use Reader (my best source of inspiration, news and ideas)

The last 3 paragraphs are my story. A good story makes anything you write more readable and is much easier to write than the more boring non-fiction style we learned in school.

I took what I know, what I have tested, and a spark of inspiration to make a list of 3 very important items to share with you. I didn’t use bullet points.. I wanted to emphasize that TESTING beats the other two.

Put Bullet Points in Everything

Every letter, most emails, many of my blog posts and much of my conversations with people are based on bullet points. I use them to:

  • Emphasize the essence of the message
  • Visual stimulate you to keep reading
  • Group ideas together.

If you haven’t guessed, my favorite number is 3. I’ve tested longer bullet point lists, 3 is most readable..(except when you have a lot of info that has to be included)

Did You Like My Headline?

I didn’t spend 90% of my writing time on this headline.. but I did think about it for 2 hours before writing. It came from inspiration, so I need to test how it will go over with you.

If you liked this headline, the bullet points or the talk of testing, say so below in a comment. Let’s discuss what you’ve found. I’m sure that your results won’t be the same as mine.

I hope this is the start of a discussion, not the end point. Let’s all work together to make our books, blogs, information products and marketing more engaging and persuasive.

Are you with me?

Calling All Aspiring Authors

iaaa logo

Last night was the launch of the International Association of Aspiring Authors.

The program was kicked of with a webinar with publishing industry trainers and I was included to talk about social media and book marketing.

You can view or listen to the presentation here

Are you aspiring to be an author? Start with the FREE Book Marketing Strategy Course for Authors I gave away during the call. As a reader of Best Seller Book Marketing Blog, you get it too.

How to be a Superhuman Author

Today, more than ever, it’s important for authors to share lots of fresh content with their readers.

Blog posts, articles, information products, presentations. How do you get it all done?

My output has gone up by 3x since I started adding told like Evernote. Here’s a fun video showing how elephants in the clouds help you remember everything.

You readers expect to be in contact with you.. asking questions and getting a fast response. As you become better known online, this demand will continue.

Let’s all step up our game. I’ve put Evernote on all my machines and updated other systems and tools that I will share here soon (thanks in no small part to Evernote).

What are you doing to step up your content creation schedule this year?