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Hey, I was in Prague for three years and made something of an attempt to learn the language. At this distance, however, all I can recall is the word pivo for beer and chemickΓ©ho peelingu being the term for chemical peel. Which didn't quite reflect my day-to-day, but some phrases just sear themselves into my brain. I remember Seth Godin once saying that “the best marketing is baked into a product,” which I always liked because I agree with it, and that's how the internet works. But I still think about it fifteen years later; it must capture something important. If you allow me to get pretentious for a moment, it's one of the core tenets of my philosophy around selling books: bake your marketing into the product and your job of selling gets much easier. Another marketing aphorism which stopped me in my tracks at some point during The Covid Years (TM) was this pearler: “Buying decisions are made with emotion but justified with logic.” Isn't that great? Doesn't that describe so much of your own spending? Everything from ordering the whisky peppercorn sauce to go with your steak - when are you going to be in this place again? - to selecting the deluxe package with your laptop because, amongst other things, it includes an extra year’s warranty; sometimes I think we'll shell out more to backfill the logic to emotion’s wanton spending. People make marketing overly complicated. They tie themselves into knots or push themselves into salesy activities which make them deeply uncomfortable. And there's truly no need because marketing - at its core - can be so very simple. Marketing is putting something in front of someone who already wants to buy it. Yeah. Just that. Doesn’t That sound easier. Nicer? More ethical? More fun? To be clear, there are other kinds of marketing. Just like there are other types of books and some crazy ideas about how to present them to readers. I’m not interested in any of that. Well written books, smartly packaged, put in front of the right readers - that's it, that's the whole ball game. Honest confession: I was so tempted to end the email there, but of course it's not that simple. Branding is a slippery concept. Finding the right readers can be tricky. Even knowing exactly what kind of book you've just spent months writing can make your brain collapse in on itself. There are challenges here; I'm not saying otherwise. But I recommend keeping your personal philosophy simple and clear so you can use it as your guiding light, helping you cut through the ever-increasing noise, focus on the path ahead, and avoid treacherous waters. Write good books. Package them in a way that is familiar to your target audience. And then place them in their path. You don't need to explain that your book is epic fantasy if your cover features a dragon breathing hellfire on a citadel below, you have already baked that into the product. No one needs to tell me that the movie Alien is not just SF but has horror elements too, which will scare the bejaysus out of me, because the tagline on the poster already tells me that: “In space, no one can hear you scream.” Readers don’t have to verify that a book is historical romance because the stylized fonts tell them in two seconds. Bake your marketing into the product... but also be careful not to introduce discordant elements. A couple in a clinch is a romance cover standard and if you have written something else then you might attract the wrong readers. Fonts, titles, covers, taglines, blurbs - all of these things can be clear signals to readers which attract them by telling them exactly what kind of book this is (or perhaps confuse them). Know your genre inside out, obviously, but pay attention to the basic conventions elsewhere. And then once your branding is nailed down, be consistent with it and carry it forward through all your marketing communications. Not just in the book’s packaging but your promo images, ads, website, newsletter, and social channels. There are as many myths around branding as there is around marketing. But it can be as simple as erecting a giant neon sign saying: “This is the kind of book you like” – and then being consistent in conveying that with every element of your presentation and communications. That usually nails the Emotion side of the equation and can be enough to get you that purchase all on its own. but sometimes Mr. Logic can hit the brakes, making it smart to throw him a bone as well and close the deal. This is why adding some social proof to your ads or blurbs or covers can be so effective at closing the sale to on-the-fence purchasers - that bestseller tag, that review count, that tasty quote is the final push they need to hit the Buy button after your cover and images evoked all those wonderful feelings. Dave P.S. Writing music this week is The Supremes with You Keep Me Hanging On which might embody some of these principles too, if you ponder the deliberate contrast between the lyrics and the music... |
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