Tuesday, August 21, 2018

How To Use The Right Words To Market Your Book



The words we use matter.

They express a certain mode of thought.  They mean something specific, but can have different connotations for certain recipients or speakers.  Choose your words wisely when promoting your book and marketing your brand.

For instance, how do you position yourself when sharing your area of expertise and background?  Are you trying to sound like a thought leader?  An intellectual?  A get-it-done type of person?  Do you lead with your years of experience – or will this indicate youthful inexperience or outdated thinking as an older person?  Do you highlight a particular job you had, a personal experience, or samples of your wisdom and insights?

Are you a “veteran” of hundreds of lawsuits (if a lawyer) or have you been an advocate on behalf of hundreds of victimized individuals?

Do you help others lose weight, live longer, feel better, and look great (if a nutritionist) – or do you enhance one’s wellness and overall health?

The specific words, their order, their timeliness, and their relevance conspire to play a key role in how people come do see you.  Do you speak with confidence but not hype?  Do you guide, but not dictate?  Are you optimistic, but grounded?

How do you discuss the price of your book?

Is it a good value or merely inexpensive – or is it dirt cheap?  Is it competitively priced but advantageous in its content offerings?

Talking about your book is similar to speaking about yourself on a job interview or first date.  You want to put your best food toward and leave a positive impression – but you don’t want to lie or oversell yourself.

Often, when promoting an author or advertising a book, you don’t have to make outrageous claims, issue ultimatums, or make a dare.  You merely need to engage others on a certain level, using the spice of particular words to whet their appetites for more.

People have good bullshit radars.  They don’t want to hear nonsense, fluff, or unproven claims.  But they do like to hear about ideal outcomes, as if listening to a self-improvement seminar or a clergy’s sermon. We want to feel that we can achieve the things we’ve failed to do, that something or someone can help solve our problems, and that we deserve good things to come our way.  Sell them hope and optimism, and possibility but not probability.

Words are the valuable asset of book marketers. They cost you nothing to use, but can make you a fortune.

If you think about it, people don’t know the value of your book – because they didn’t read it – so in order for them to agree to invest their time and money into it, you need to give them the perception that it’s worth buying.  You have to appeal to their needs and desires by using the right adjectives, verbs, and nouns, by dressing up the basics by shaping a vision, by helping the potential reader feel the uniqueness of something they have not yet experienced.

Here are some guidelines on how to sell people:

·         Don’t repeat the same words, but find synonyms.
·         State the obvious emphatically – take ownership of it.
·         Share a surprise.
·         Use colorful words that empower others – make them feel, think, and experience.
·         Share examples or tell stories that are not open to interpretation.
·         Always provide the benefits of what one will receive as a result of reading your book.
·         Answer the questions or doubts that you can assume others may have about you or your book.
·         Make proclamations, sound confident, tell a joke, and most of all, sound like you understand their needs.

Your words will need to appeal to your targeted reader demographic.  If your book is for women or children or seniors or Jews or Blacks or some specific group, always cater to their needs and viewpoints.

Lastly, realize that people could be reading any book, so why yours?  They could be doing anything, why read a book?  They could be in the middle of a busy life, why take a break to include your book?  

Whichever words you choose to use, make sure they answer the assumptions, curiosities, needs, and opinio that they operate under.




Excerpts From: The Prodigal Tongue: The Love Hate Relationship Between American and British English by Lynne Murphy

“Americans are ruining the English language.  I know this because people go out of their way to tell me so.  I am a magnet for such comments – an American who dares to teach English Language and linguistics at a British university and who has the chutzpah to write about American and British language differences on the internet.  But you don’t need me to tell you about the wrecking ball that is American English – the talking heads of Britain have been pointing it out for years.  English is under attack from American words that are “mindless” (the Mail on Sunday), “ugly and pointless” (BBC Magazine), “infectious, destructive and virulent” (the Daily Mail).  American words “infect, invade, and pollute” (The Times).  Even Prince Charles has assessed the situation, warning that American English is “very corrupting.” …

“Maybe it’s inarticulate young people, bent on creating a future English that consists of little more than strings of so like kinda this and stuff.  Or is technology responsible?  BBC journalist John Humphrys likens text-messagers to Genghis Khan; they are vandals who are “pillaging our punctuation; savaging our sentences; raping our vocabulary.” …

“This increasingly technologized, globalized world brings us business jargon, the language of optimism and obfuscation.   Surely going forward, reaching out, and leveraging our real-time client synergy is the fault of go-getting, pop-psychologizing American suits. …

“Is American English really a disease that infects other languages, particularly the mother tongue of England?  Or are we seeing the influence of linguistic hypochondriacs, diagnosing idiocy and destruction where there is none?  Are Americanisms evil pollutants that disintegrate minds?  Or do they inoculate English against a wasting atrophy?”



“English?  Who needs that?  I’m never going to England!”  --Homer Simpson


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Brian Feinblum’s insightful views, provocative opinions, and interesting ideas expressed in this terrific blog are his alone and not that of his employer or anyone else. You can – and should -- follow him on Twitter @theprexpert and email him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels much more important when discussed in the third-person. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog © 2018. Born and raised in Brooklyn, he now resides in Westchester. His writings are often featured in The Writer and IBPA’s Independent.  This was named one of the best book marketing blogs by Book Baby http://blog.bookbaby.com/2013/09/the-best-book-marketing-blogs and recognized by Feedspot in 2018 as one of the top book marketing blogs. Also named by WinningWriters.com as a "best resource.” He recently hosted a panel on book publicity for Book Expo America and participated in a PR panel at the Sarah Lawrence College Writers Institute Conference.

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