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The Steve Laube Agency

The Steve Laube Agency

Helping to Change the World Word by Word

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Home » Marketing » Page 2

Marketing

Create Magic with Words

By Tamela Hancock Murrayon July 12, 2018
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Years ago, I took my five-year-old daughter to Toys R Us to meet “Barbie.” “Barbie” turned out to be a cute and charming teenager who, yes, looked like the classic blonde image of the doll. She wore a pretty pink gown.

I expected a lot more fanfare around this event. Like, maybe some cheap swag, a chance to win a Barbie doll or Barbie convertible, or at least a throne for Barbie. Maybe a stage with lots of pink. But she randomly stood in the store. I guess someone who worked there had a pretty teenage daughter willing to give up a Saturday afternoon to wear a pink dress and be nice to little girls and their mothers. I appreciate her efforts, will always remember the event, and hope she’s having a lovely life.

However, this lack of magic explains one of the reasons, to me, why Toys R Us is closing. My most recent trips there made me depressed as I viewed row after row of – stuff. Yet I’m sad to see them go.

When we write and market our books, we must not make this mistake. We can’t let our books languish on the shelf or not jump out at readers as they click through on the Internet. We must make our books spellbinding. By that I don’t mean let’s all write about the evils of witchcraft. I mean, our books must promise – and deliver –  magic.

Nonfiction is the selling of hope. Like Charles Revson, founder of Revlon Cosmetics, said, “We produce cosmetics in factories and sell hope in magazines.” To wit:

  • The marriage book will save your relationship
  • The dating book will help you find your mate
  • The parenting book will earn you a “Parent of the Year” medal
  • The book on guilt or grieving will ease your heart and mind
  • The memoir or biography will inspire and help you learn from another’s mistakes
  • The book on religion will help you understand God

Fiction is its own type of magic:

  • Escaping from boredom, routine, and monotony
  • Learning from the mistakes of characters
  • Thinking about a tough issue in a safe way, through pretend
  • Seeing “what if” without taking risks in real life
  • Falling in love along with a couple
  • Solving “who dunnit” before the big reveal

When you write to spellbind your readers, your books will become magical.

Your turn:

What is the most magical book you’ve read lately.

What other points do you think make a book magical?

 

Leave a Comment
Category: Book Business, Book Proposals, Creativity, Marketing, Pitch, The Writing Life, Writing CraftTag: Book Business, Creativity, Marketing, Writing Craft

Starting an Author Newsletter Before Winning a Book Contract

By Tamela Hancock Murrayon June 14, 2018
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Writers often wonder how to start a newsletter before their book is released. The process might not seem to make sense when you’re publishing a newsletter to promote yourself as an author. However, since a newsletter is meant to establish a relationship with potential fans, being in communication with readers is a great idea. Here are some strategies: Include personal tidbits. You aren’t an author …

Read moreStarting an Author Newsletter Before Winning a Book Contract
Category: Branding, Marketing, Platform, Social Media, The Writing LifeTag: Marketing, Newsletters, Platform

Don’t Put Everything in Your Book

By Dan Balowon May 29, 2018
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One reason platform-building is a such a problem for some authors is the feeling they must place everything important in their book, leaving little or nothing left to say for platform purposes. This puts an author in an awkward position where they either deviate from their core book-message for their platform (social media and other efforts) or they treat their platform only as a “teaser” or …

Read moreDon’t Put Everything in Your Book
Category: Branding, Career, Marketing, Pitching, PlatformTag: Branding, Marketing, Message, Platform

Make Much Ado of Your New Book

By Bob Hostetleron April 18, 2018
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(5 Ways to Plan a Success-Guaranteed Book Launch Event) I am no marketing genius, and though I’ve written fifty books, I still have much to learn about author and book publicity. But I nonetheless had a great time launching my book, The Bard and the Bible: A Shakespeare Devotional, a book of daily reflections drawn from a quote from Shakespeare and a verse from the King James Version of the Bible …

Read moreMake Much Ado of Your New Book
Category: Book Sales, Career, Marketing, Platform, The Writing LifeTag: Book Launch, Book Sales, Marketing, Platform

Book and Author – Traveling Companions

By Dan Balowon April 17, 2018
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In publishing circles, we frequently refer to the “launch” of a new book when it is first published, but often tend to overlook the fact that it is not an unmanned rocket controlled at the publisher/mission control.  Books need a pilot. The author must travel with the book. I am uncertain if there ever was a time in the history of book publishing where an author didn’t need to join their book out …

Read moreBook and Author – Traveling Companions
Category: Branding, Career, Get Published, Marketing, PlatformTag: Book Launch, Getp Published, Marketing, Platform

Getting Started in Social Media

By Dan Balowon March 20, 2018
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Actually, the title was a bit of click-bait to entice aspiring authors and platform builders to open this post. Sorry. Getting started in social media is not a problem. It’s as simple as 1-2-3 and grade school children around the world do it every day. If you are having trouble getting started in social media, it could be your rotary-dial phone, thirty-year-old modem and Commodore 64 computer are …

Read moreGetting Started in Social Media
Category: Branding, Marketing, Platform, Social Media, Technology, The Writing LifeTag: Branding, Marketing, Platform, Social Media

Creative or Effective? You Decide

By Dan Balowon March 6, 2018
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Very early in my working life, I was involved in advertising sales for a radio station.  Probably because I was pretty much a “blank slate” back then, I remember the first advertising seminar I attended like it was yesterday. People who know me well, might smile (or roll their eyes) when I’ll repeat a sales or marketing principle I learned decades ago.  They are “on to me.” At the first seminar, I …

Read moreCreative or Effective? You Decide
Category: Book Proposals, Branding, Marketing, Pitch, PitchingTag: book proposal, Cover Letter, Creativity, Marketing

Can Death Cleaning Spark Joy?

By Tamela Hancock Murrayon February 8, 2018
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One of the most challenging aspects of being successful in nonfiction is choosing a topic general enough to interest a broad swath of readers, but unique enough to make them think of the question in a new way so they’ll want to buy your book. Take decluttering. I follow at least three decluttering blogs. My daughter says, “How about just cleaning instead of reading about it? Then you’d get it …

Read moreCan Death Cleaning Spark Joy?
Category: Book Proposals, Branding, Marketing, Pitching, Platform, The Writing LifeTag: Marketing, Nonfiction

Marketing to Younger Readers

By Dan Balowon February 6, 2018
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A challenge for book promoters is trying to market to a narrow group of people and discovering they are not easily distinguished one from another.  People are born every day and there is no definable space between demographic markets. Generational identifiers are not scientific, but arbitrary for marketing convenience sake. In case you don’t know all the terms: Traditionalists – Born up to 1945 …

Read moreMarketing to Younger Readers
Category: Marketing, The Publishing Life, The Writing Life, TrendsTag: Marketing, readers, The Publishing Life

In Defense of Social Media

By Dan Balowon January 30, 2018
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Today I am going to stick up for the poor, downtrodden multibillion dollar global public corporations behind social media. Blamed for everything from the breakdown of the family to the dissolution of meaningful personal relationships, they are supposedly the reason society is on a virtual brink of collapse. But for authors of books, social media is the simplest and quickest way to create an author …

Read moreIn Defense of Social Media
Category: Branding, Marketing, Platform, Social MediaTag: Marketing, Platform, Social Media
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