by Deborah Riley-Magnus
What makes you so special? What makes your book so special? We’ve all taken a stroll through those huge book stores and gotten that shiver of terror. Even if you’re already published and about to launch your second or tenth book, that fear trickles in and without warning you start to wonder. Who is going to buy my book when they’re bombarded with all these other books? Yes, you’re writing is wonderful and your story kicks butt, but one twirl around and you see thousands of other author’s offerings and can’t help but feel the pressure. Book store or online, it’s the same.
Relax. The solution is so simple it might shock you. The most important things you need to know to make your book stand out are not in marketing books or genre statistics. They’re not in publicity strategies or media hype. The most important elements to make you and your book stand apart are right inside your manuscript.
Your all important “hooks” are in your characters, your plot and your style. In other words, you created all the solutions you need to market, promote and publicize your book when you wrote the book.
What makes your book so special is what made your publisher sit up and take notice. For example …
- Location. Where does your book take place? Can you build, develop and implement entire promotions around that location?
- Character. Is there something special about your characters? Are they werewolves? Historic sailors? Contemporary businessmen? Members of a club or organization that drives the story? Is there something special about your main character? Do they have a silly saying they repeat? Wear two different size shoes? Love cats? Enjoy root beer floats? Go deep, identify what makes your characters special and consider how that element might create a powerful “hook” that resonates with a prospective book buyer.
- Association. If your main character is a gardener, are gardening clubs a good target? If he/she loves animals, are animal rescue groups a good readership target? Does your character connect with any large group of any profession or interest? Are these possible fans? Always consider association, it can open big doors for target marketing
- Plot. Is your book an adventure about whales or space travel or 2012 and the end of time? Is your book a romance that involves people from different backgrounds? Is it a fantasy about supernatural characters struggling to remain hidden in the human world? Here are the facts about finding your “hooks” – they can be in any and every part of your book, they’re implanted inside your story and they are ready to be effective.
The power of identifying all your possible Hooks is that you can then find more target markets for your book. Automatically, readers of a specific genre will take a look and possibly buy the book. The trick to success is to go further and dig deeper.
Next time we’ll cover Author Success Tool #3, Build Your Platform.
Deborah Riley-Magnus
The Author Success Coach
AUTHOR BIO
Deborah Riley-Magnus is an author and an Author Success Coach. She has a twenty-seven year professional background in marketing, advertising and public relations as a writer for print, television and radio. She writes fiction in several genres and non-fiction. Deborah produces several pieces weekly for various websites and blogs. She also writes an author industry blog, http://rileymagnus.wordpress.com/ and teaches online and live workshops as The Author Success Coach. She belongs to several writing and professional organizations. Her book, The Author Success Coach: Strategies for Author Success in a Turbulent Publishing Landscape is scheduled to be released in August, 2011. She’s lived on both the east and west coast of the United States and has traveled the country widely.
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