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What
Are We Selling?
What are we selling? As authors, this question may seem painfully
obvious. But the answer is a more involved than you might expect.
Clearly defining your product (book) will put you ahead of the
game as you undertake your marketing and promotional activities.
Begin with the basics. What is your book's title? How many words
and pages? Your book may be available in multiple formats, each
with a unique ISBN number. Make sure your marketing contains the
correct ISBN number or numbers so bookstores and others can
locate your title. Contact your publisher if you're unsure—and
double-check all numbers. Next, who distributes your book? Who
retails it? Include your publisher's Web site as well as your own
site if readers can buy your book at either location. Knowing who
your retailers are tells customers where to buy your book.
Remember to make the buying process fast and easy!
Now let's examine your book. Far beyond mere paper and ink, what
you're really selling is an experience. Readers buy books because
they want to travel to and immerse themselves in your universe.
Non-fiction authors sell learning experiences. Fiction authors
sell escapes—mental vacations. Readers use your words as
inspiration to create and travel their own universes for a time.
These universes may be romantic, suspenseful, funny, profound,
sad, violent, sexy, surreal, or any combination of these and more
and can be just as real as the one we inhabit. Thus, the key to
selling books is to clearly define the experience you are selling
and tell as many people as possible about it. So how do we tell
readers about your universe?
Start by coalescing your book's universe into a single
descriptive sentence (tag line)that captures the essence of the
experience awaiting readers. Movies are a great example of tag
lines. For example, Alien's tag line is "in space, no one can
hear you scream". Seven Years in
Tibet's is "at
the end of the world, his real journey began". You get the idea.
A powerful tag line greatly helps marketing. Run some ideas past
your friends, family, fellow authors, agent, publisher, etc. and
pick the most popular one. This will be well worth your effort!
What's your book about? There are two answers. One is the
synopsis, or plot summary. Begin by condensing your synopsis down
into 100 words. I know it's tough, but you have only seconds to
make a strong impact. Also, your ability to distill your plot
indicates how tight it is. If you can't narrow your plot to 100
words, you may need to reevaluate it. The 100-word synopsis is
for press releases, your Web site, and anywhere readers will
linger longer enough to read it.
Now cut your 100-word synopsis to 50. Notice that as your
synopsis gets shorter, the trivial details are removed leaving
only the important points. Use these 50 words for ads and
interviews depending on time and space allowances. Finally, cut
those 50 words to 25 for your back cover or dust jacket, small
ads, any time you need to get your message across quickly.
Now let's talk theme. While plot describes your book as a chain
of events, theme is what the story is really about. Plot is
genre-specific. By contrast, theme is genre-independent. What is
the central struggle or key goal? What's learned, gained, lost,
discussed? This is your theme. Having written your theme, cut it
to 25 words. A well-crafted theme might even attract people who
may not otherwise read your genre. And we could all use fresh
fans!
Authors must carve their own niche while remaining accessible to
readers. It helps to compare your work to well-known books by
well-known authors. This gives readers a solid frame of
reference. You need not limit yourself to your genre. Remember
that any link you make must be readily apparent to the people who
read your listed books. Next, who are your greatest influences?
How does your book reflect its influences and resemble its
parallels? This may be obvious to you but it won't be to your
readers. You must be able to articulate why and how you made the
links you did.
There exist but a few fundamental story lines with every book,
movie, opera, etc. telling different variations on them over and
over. There's nothing new under the sun. While the story lines
have all been used, you can still offer a fresh way of telling
the story. Maybe you introduce elements not normally found in
your genre or blend some previous work in a new way. Whatever it
is, you must articulate how your book varies from its peers and
predecessors. This is what some business books refer to as your
"unique sales advantage". For example, a large city has dozens of
pizza joints. If you're trying to start a new pizzeria, how will
you distinguish yourself from your competition?
As with anything, never forget balance. Being fresh and unique is
crucial provided it retains enough anchors in familiarity for
readers to accept it. This need for familiarity is what drives
the fast food industry—and what is now driving some new chains
that offer variations on the tried and true fare. Same idea with
your book.
Movies are a huge and growing industry. Can you compare and
contrast your book with any current or past movies? That can help
readers get a visual sense of your writing—and humans get most
information from sight. Tapping into that gives you a powerful
advantage. Expanding on this concept, what celebrities do your
protagonist and antagonist resemble? Which book or movie
characters can you compare them to?
Look at the world condition. What current or timeless issues or
questions does your book deal with? Answering this question helps
tie your book into the world at large.
Here's another question you'll get time and time again: Who are
you? What qualifies you to write this book? This is something you
need to think about very carefully and be prepared to answer,
especially if you write nonfiction. You see, you're selling
yourself just as much as your book.
Reviews are one of the cornerstones of a successful book title.
The general public expects you to be biased in favor of your own
work and won't take your self-praise seriously. They will take
reviews seriously, however, especially if the reviewers are
well-known and/or well-qualified. If your book has already been
reviewed, you're one step ahead. Don't worry too much about the
occasional less-than-stellar review; You can usually glean a
positive sentence or two from them. But if your reviews are
consistently bad, you may want to rethink your book and possibly
pull it for rework and re-release—under a new title if possible.
This may seem like a lot of work. And you could be right. But
your ability to clearly communicate what your book is all about
(in other words, what you're selling) will pay off. This is one
place where you literally can't afford not to make the
investment!
Just my 2 cents' worth!
Anthony Hernandez, creator of: Marketing Your Books: A
Holistic Approach & Getting Published: End To Beginning &
Selling Your Books: A Roadmap For Success endorsed by Jay Conrad
Levinson & Dan Poynter available from
Dawnstar Books
Mr. Hernandez is a guest author for American Book Publishing.
© 2002
Anthony Hernandez *All other trademarks used by permission. All
rights reserved.
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