{"id":3196,"date":"2010-12-15T12:00:08","date_gmt":"2010-12-15T06:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/?p=3196"},"modified":"2014-12-23T17:15:58","modified_gmt":"2014-12-23T11:45:58","slug":"personality-promotion-an-authors-best-friend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/personality-promotion-an-authors-best-friend\/","title":{"rendered":"Mid-Week Book Marketing Tips: Personality Promotion: An Author\u2019s Best Friend"},"content":{"rendered":"

Guest Expert: Laurel Marshfield<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>You\u2019ve heard the numbers. Over a million new books were published last year, in this country alone. The numbers for 2010, when tallied, will be even more daunting. And that\u2019s not including eBooks.<\/p>\n

So what do these numbers mean for authors?<\/p>\n

One thing they mean is that, with a million-plus books competing for readers, the likelihood of a not-yet-known author attracting huge sales looks fairly slim. But you knew that. And you wrote your book anyway, secretly hoping you\u2019d be the exception — at least in your niche. Now, it hits you: how will not-yet-known You<\/em> draw readers your way?<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s your \u201cAuthor\u2019s Best Friend\u201d option. Given the crowded book landscape, what you need is a strategy that makes your<\/em> book pop, when readers are gazing at those crowded shelves. That strategy is \u201cpersonality promotion.\u201d Sure, it comes from the simpler, black-and-white world of marketing, but it can be adapted for the nuanced world that authors inhabit.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got five minutes,\u201d you say. \u201cTell me how it works.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, okay! First, you find — and second, shape — your personal story, while keeping in mind that your potential readers need to feel<\/em> something for you. They need to empathize with who you are as a person. Think of this as the same kind of empathetic connection that occurs between readers and the main characters of your novel. You want your readers to identify with their plight and eventual triumph, to vicariously suffer and succeed as they do.<\/p>\n

This type of identification should also occur with you, the author. And your personal story makes that possible — by inspiring an empathy that leads to a connection that drives the sales of your book. Over time, that connection may also blossom into a reader-author relationship. (Quick. Would you buy the latest book by your favorite author? \u201cOf course,\u201d you say, \u201cright away.\u201d That can\u2019t-wait-to-read-it response comes from the empathy-connection relationship. You want that.)<\/p>\n

So you\u2019ve heard the what and the why. Now you need to know how<\/em> to get the personality promotion process going. The clearest way to see how the first and second steps work — finding and shaping your author story — is to glance back in time at authors who\u2019ve become literary objets d’art<\/em>. Hemingway. J.D. Salinger. Virginia Woolf. We know what they stand for; their personal stories are clear and simple (in our minds), and they, along with their books, have long since fossilized into authorial \u201cbrands.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Hemingway brand we associate with manly excess, safaris, a hidden code of honor, and ultimate suicide. The J.D. Salinger brand we associate with never-ending adolescent alienation, a lifelong obsession with being absolutely reclusive. And the Virginia Woolf brand we associate with extreme intelligence, complex literary aspirations, and mental torment that led to self-drowning.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what you need to notice: The books these authors produced reveal a relationship to their personal stories, and vice versa.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut,\u201d you say, \u201cI\u2019m not Hemingway, Salinger, or Woolf.\u201d True. Nor should you be; you have your own story. Here\u2019s how to unearth it: find the point where your novel, your self-help book, or your memoir intersects with your own life. In the latter case, it\u2019s obvious; in the first two, it may not be. But wherever that intersection is, write it as a story that you perfect and polish — so it\u2019s clear, dramatic, and not convoluted (simplify, if need be). Then use it in every one of your book promotion efforts, in some way, shape, or form.<\/p>\n

Need a little more info? Let\u2019s look at the intersection between a current<\/em> author\u2019s life and book. And let\u2019s choose a memoir, because the personal story of that kind of author is quite a bit easier to see.<\/p>\n

In 2005, Jeannette Walls published The Glass Castle<\/em> and, a mere two years later, she\u2019d sold 1.5 million copies. Walls\u2019 first-book success came from something that\u2019s abundantly clear in her memoir\u2019s many reader reviews on Amazon.com. Here\u2019s an excerpt from one: \u201cIt’s probably the best account ever written of a dysfunctional family — and it must have taken Walls so much courage to put pen to paper and recount the details of her rather bizarre childhood — which although it’s like none other and is so dramatic — any reader will relate to it. Readers will find bits and pieces of their own parents in Rex and Rose Mary Walls.\u201d<\/p>\n

Note the reader identification, the empathy, the feeling that — though Walls describes a \u201crather bizarre childhood\u201d — \u201cany reader will relate.\u201d This is a memoir and an author you can identify with; her story touches you. She gets you on her side.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s this kind of response that you want. Why? From this empathetic identification with your personal story \u2013 the intersection between your book and your life \u2013 your book sales will grow. As proof, Walls was herself unknown to readers before publishing her first book.<\/p>\n

So here\u2019s the bottom line: Your personality. Don\u2019t promote your book without it.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"Laurel Marshfield<\/strong> is a professional writer, developmental editor, and ghostwriter who helps authors shape, develop, and refine their book manuscripts for publication. She offers manuscript evaluation, developmental editing, co-writing, collaboration, ghostwriting, book coaching, and consultation for authors.
\nHer blogsite publishes inspiration and advice for the author\u2019s journey: Blue Horizon Communications<\/a> And her free eBook, available for newsletter signup (see the upper right-hand corner of her homepage) is titled: I Need to Be a Bestselling Author \u2013 Is That True?: The Five-Destination Roadmap to Authorship<\/strong>.
\nOn Twitter, you can find her at: @BookEditorLM<\/a>
\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Guest Expert: Laurel Marshfield You\u2019ve heard the numbers. Over a million new books were published last year, in this country alone. The numbers for 2010, when tallied, will be even more daunting. And that\u2019s not including eBooks. So what do these numbers mean for authors? One thing they mean is that, with a million-plus books […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":3200,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,123],"tags":[9,3,18,350,351],"class_list":["post-3196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-marketing","category-mid-week-book-marketing-tips","tag-authors","tag-book-marketing","tag-book-promotion","tag-personality","tag-personality-promotion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3196\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}