Book marketing and branding (plus a bit on editing)
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The document outlines key aspects of creating a book, including developing a personal brand and effective marketing strategies such as internet and social media engagement. It emphasizes the importance of editing, both at the conceptual and line level, along with techniques for improving pacing and clarity through emotive language and showing versus telling in writing. Finally, the document provides guidance on grammar and offers a supportive message to aspiring authors.
Book marketing and branding (plus a bit on editing)
- 1. CREATING A BOOK FROM CONCEPT TO PUBLICATION Marketing and Branding/ Editing Yourself into Print
- 2. BRANDING What is a brand? A brand is a promise you are making to your readers about your book (product). It differentiates you from all the other authors in the world. For Susan Wiggs: Laugh. Cry. Dream. Read. Dream. For Pamela Palmer: Riveting tales of dark, paranormal romance. Now would this brand work for Lee Child? No. If I was his publicist I would have something like: Murder. Secrets. Lies. Revenge.
- 3. COMING UP WITH A SUCCESSFUL TAG LINE The tagline is a brief way to let readers know what you have to offer. You want your tagline to be consistent with your brand. Try to keep your tag line less than seven words. Make sure your tag line reflects the promise you make when someone picks up a book you‘ve written.
- 4. MARKETING Is marketing necessary? What types of marketing is effective for an author? Internet Marketing Social Media Google Amazon Author Central Ad campaigns Local Media Direct Sales ―Pocket‖ sales This is when you sell to people you know in person. Book Signings/Events
- 5. INTERNET MARKETING Your Website: Center of your marketing hub Connects you with your reader Demonstrates your brand Understand SEO (search engine optimization) and your best keywords Understand the difference between marketing and conversion to sales Capture people‘s contact information and build a relationship
- 7. SOCIAL MEDIA Social media includes online booksellers (Amazon, etc.), blogs (yours and others), email newsletters (ezines), Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, Pinterest, YouTube, etc. Create a stellar bio and reuse it Get a professional headshot in different sizes for different social media sites Make sure your brand is consistent across all media sites
- 8. STAYING SANE WITH SOCIAL MEDIA Start slowly Develop an ―editorial calendar‖ with events, themes, information, etc. for each month Build relationships – don‘t constantly hawk your book Limit your time – remember your best marketing is your NEXT book
- 9. FOLLOWING THE (UNWRITTEN) RULES OF SOCIAL MEDIA Always use a professional photograph. Never rant. Your professional author page is not a soap box. Save the complaints for your private account. Don‘t outright sell on your Fan/Followers page. Don‘t write ―Buy my book!‖ Don‘t gloat. Yes, we are happy you got a contract and some will congratulate you, but most will be throwing daggers at your picture. Never post unwelcome messages on someone‘s page. Always try to cultivate long-lasting relationships. These are the people who read your book (yes, even other authors). Keep up-to-date with your social media. Always work on growing your platform.
- 10. ONWARD TO EDITING! (The nuts and bolts of being an author)
- 11. CONCEPTUAL EDITING This is going over a book from start to finish as you look for holes in your plot. Look for Flow/Pacing Relevance Clarity Character Development Head hopping/POV Shifts
- 12. LINE/COPY EDITING Correcting spelling, grammar, punctuation, syntax, and word usage. Clarity. Copyrighted materials. Checking references.
- 13. PROOFREADING (THE LAST STEP IN EDITING) This is a step in which you want to read it from your readers point of view. If you were walking into this story from another would you know what is going on? Does it all make sense? Is there a strong Goal/Motivation/Conflict. Is there a strong scene in each passage?
- 14. MY (NOW, NOT SO) SECRET LIST Cut all unnecessary words: That/It/Had Don‘t use telling language: She knew She heard She thought She smelled Check for homophones. There/Their/They‘re Your/You‘re YES, we all think we are above this, but when you are in the trenches and writing, sometimes the obvious flies out the door. ―The road to hell is paved with adverbs‖ Cut all unnecessary -ly words. (Shh… I think they are greatly undervalued.) Check all eye/hair colors for all characters. Check all pronouns for clarity. ―She walked into the room to see him.‖
- 15. A BIT ON PACING What is pacing? This is the heartbeat of your story. Sometimes your heart beats fast, sometimes slow, but remember that it always does what the environment/scene around it tells it to do. Fast-paced: ―No, he was not worried about mutiny. He was worried about timing.‖ (The Forgotten, Baldacci) Slow-paced: ―At that moment, Josie could not remember the pills she was hoarding in her room; she could not remember anything but what it felt like to be adored.‖ (Nineteen Minutes, Jodi Picoult) Yes, sometimes it is a person‘s style, but even within that style there are faster and slower portions. We can‘t all run all the time. If you character is constantly in critical jeopardy (life vs. death) in every scene (not just the driving motivation) then there is something wrong with your book.
- 16. (THIS ISN‘T A SHORT LIST) Check Sentence length. Different sentence lengths are appropriate for different stages/scenes of the book. (Nineteen Minutes, Jodi Picoult, Pocket Book, 2007) Beginning: ―She held her mother‘s admission as if It were a butterfly lighting on her hand by accident: an event so startling you could not call attention to it without risking its loss.‖ Why do you think she uses such a long sentence here? Turning Point: ―Alex had been raised by her father to give everything her best shot, and apparently, that included falling off the deep end.‖ This is shorter. Why? End: ―In that instant, something inside Peter broke: not his anger and not his hidden fear, but that last spider-thread of hope.‖ Even at the end of the story we need to have emotion—let‘s imagine this sentence without ―weighted words‖. ―In that instant, something inside Peter broke and he lost all hope.‖ • All emotional connection is lost. You are telling the reader instead of making them feel the scene.
- 17. (THERE‘S STILL MORE OF ―THE LIST‖) Use Emotive Language: What is emotive language? If emotions are feelings, emotives are the expression of those feelings through the use of language, specifically through the constructions that explicitly describe emotional state or attitudes (Luke, 2004). You can also call it ―Weighted/Loaded Language‖ Wording that attempts to influence the reader by using emotion. This is what Picoult used to make us ‗feel‘ all of her sentences. Be careful of using metaphors. I write romance. I like metaphors. ―Her hair flowed like a horse‘s mane, wild and free, in the westerly wind.‖ • But that doesn‘t always make them great.
- 18. (MORE) EXAMPLES OF EMOTIVE LANGUAGE: ―Not for the first time, he regretted agreeing to this business venture. Yet the money was so good he could not turn it down, despite the risks…It beat the hell out of driving his boat for pasty tourists from the North looking to land a tuna or marlin but more often puking all over his boat in rough seas.‖ (The Forgotten, Baldacci) This is a different style of writing, but there is still emotion in his words. We get a sense of the character, his goal, motivation, and conflict all in a nice little bundle.
- 19. SHOWING VERSUS TELLING Telling is one of the most common mistake made by aspiring authors. What is Telling? It is the play by play. You‘re not a sports commentator. What is Showing? This is where you use your emotive language to bring the reader into the scene by making them feel the action instead of being told what is happening. Let‘s go through some examples: Telling: ―He ate breakfast while they talked.‖ Showing: ―The last bits of the scrambled eggs wiggled around Chance‘s plate as if they were as uncomfortable with the conversation as he was.‖ Another: Telling: ―He could hear the water dripping.‖ Showing: ―The water splashed down on the steel, filling the room with its lonesome sound.‖ One more: Telling: ―She saw a black cat cross the street.‖ Showing: ―A black cat, sticking to the shadows, slunk across the street.‖ A good way to start seeing Telling is to look for telling language. (―He saw, she heard, he smelled…‖)
- 20. MORE ON CONTENT Time of year. Check all references. Walk through your streets, did you move a buidling? What‘s in the scene. What does this place look like? Is it clear to the reader? Check characters voice. Even though they have a character arc through the book, they are going to speak in the same way. Check to make sure all possessions are accounted for. Where they pouring a glass of water? Holding a flashlight? What happened to it?
- 21. MORE ON GRAMMAR Check for unnecessary sentence fragments. Never use exclamation points! (Unless they are absolutely necessary!) Cut ―Stranded Prepositions‖ For, after, under, to, etc. Example: ―That‘s the woman I was talking to.‖ Corrected: ―I was talking to that woman.‖ Watch dangling participles -ing words. Example: Standing up, the chair was empty. Corrected: When she stood up, the chair was empty. Don‘t use Passive Voice: This hinders clarity. Example: The alley was crossed. Corrected: The officer crossed the alley.
- 22. ANY QUESTIONS?
- 23. THANK YOU! It has been an honor to help you all get started/continue your journey as authors. Please keep me informed. I want to hear about your successes!