How High Will Your Elevator Speech Take You?

When marketing your book you need an elevator speech that entices the listener to want to know more. Your goal is to get them to take an action step.

How can you summarize a 70,000-word book that took you months or years to create, write, and edit so that within 15 seconds you’ve convinced someone to buy the book, consult your site, or interview you for the media?

1.      Break down what the book is about, who it’s for, why you wrote it, and who you are. Think of the most important things for each and leave out the details.

2.      Less is more. A ride in the tallest buildings and slowest elevators won’t last more than 15-20 seconds, which is maybe enough time to spit out 100 words. If you can tweet using 140 characters, 100 words is plenty to work with.

3.      Choose your descriptive words carefully – don’t oversell it by using lofty terms like revolutionize, unique, or greatest. Also, don’t repeat the use of any word, considering you will only use a handful of words in total.

4.      Don’t quote stats that sound unbelievable or unreliable. People will doubt them.

5.      Avoid sounding confusing, inconsistent, inaccurate, or far-reaching. Let the strength of the facts speak for themselves.

6.      Don’t come off as an egomaniacal braggart. There’s a way to state strong credentials without coming off like you are reading a resume.

7.      Don’t make any assumptions, curse, put down other groups, lie, or overhype potential scenarios of the future. Sound grounded, legitimate, and resourceful.

8.      Speak with passion, optimism, and conviction. Always smile and change your voice inflection. Don’t sound like you’re giving a scripted answer.

9.      Come across with a sense of urgency and timeliness, but not desperation.

10.  Mention the title of your book, your web site, and have a business card to share.

If all else fails, press the alarm, and stop the elevator. Now you have a captive audience.

BLOG HIGHLIGHTS

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Hunting for Book Sales Beyond Amazon

http://bookmarketingbuzzblog.blogspot.com/2013/02/battle-for-book-sales-beyond-amazon.html 

Don’t Let Book Marketing Fears Keep You From Achieving Success

http://bookmarketingbuzzblog.blogspot.com/2013/03/book-marketing-fears.html

Brian Feinblum’s views, opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog are his alone and not that of his employer, the nation’s largest book promoter. You can follow him on Twitter @theprexpert and email him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more important when discussed in the third-person. This blog is copyrighted material by BookMarketingBuzzBlog ©2013