|
|
| www.1001TopWords.com |
|
|
Attract More Buyers to Your Book: Use Metaphors
Surprise your potential buyers. Give them chocolate frosting! After we entered school we had a lot to learn. We left the sand box, the nap, and the all day playing with our imagination. No wonder we have lost touch with our original, playful, creativity. Now in the information age we expect to read short, concise pieces. Yet, we can, if we play a little, add more of our original ideas to our books if we use metaphor. Metaphor means wedding a word to an image, sound or feeling. Metaphor is a fusing of dissimilar entities into one new image. Metaphor asserts a likeness between two unlike things. Images are word pictures that give language power and richness by involving our senses in the experience. When you wed an image or feeling to something totally unexpected, you produce a new pattern--a metaphor that creates a powerful picture and reader enjoyment. The purpose of metaphor is to intensify your awareness of the images around you. Clichés are worn out metaphors. Avoid platitudes because your reader will be bored with them and not read on. Write naturally and avoid pompous words like "utilize." Metaphors create tension and excitement by producing new connections. Hence, they reveal a truth about the world we previously didn't recognize. The power of metaphor is to surprise us.... Marilyn Ferguson, author of The Aquarian Conspiracy, says, "Metaphor builds a bridge between the hemispheres, symbolically carrying knowledge from the mute right brain so it can be recognized by the left as being like something alreadyknown." When your potential customers glance (about 12-15 seconds) at your front cover and back cover, and see originality there through metaphor, they will gain insight that sheds new light on a familiar concept, idea, event or feeling. Your metaphors hook and seduce them. Now, they will hand you their check or credit card feeling good about themselves for the decision. To Enhance your Writing Practice This Fieldwork: 1. Start a Metaphor List. Keep it filed where you can find it easily and add to it. Every time you hear a good one, write it down. Use other people's metaphors as a springboard for you own. 2. Play with these exercises: Practice: Writing is...as painful as a tooth being pulled... riding a roller coaster... a self-revelation. Now try your book's title or part of your "tell and sell" (unique selling proposition which includes benefits), and back cover copy. Self-care is...a bubble bath in the middle of a workday... breathing in the mountain air... lighting a candle near my workstation. 3. Complete these metaphor starters: Remember to use concrete words--of image, sound and feeling. Forgo all clichés. I'm as silly as Expand the list using the subjects of your book. Think and picture your audience as you create more powerful writing. 4. Re-define all general benefits in your introduction, "tell and sell," or sales letter. Instead of saying, "Read my book and live life well," make your benefit more specific such as "Read my book and your life will look like...." Or, "Read my book and your life will feel like...." 5. Finish These Statements to Warm Up: -Stress is... Let your potential buyer know how they will see or feel themselves after they read and use your book's ideas andsuggestions. When they can see or feel it for themselves, they are more comfortable buying. They need to see the results (benefits) and feel themselves better for using your product. 6. Just for fun: "I was as dizzy as a dervish, as weak as a worn-out washer, aslow as a badger's belly, as timid as a titmouse, and as unlikely tosucceed as a ballet dancer with a wooden leg." Each of you has the powerful potential for making connectionsand seeing relationships in your own unique way. Metaphormaking is a highly personal and richly creative experience. Playwith metaphors and use them in all of your writing--even your sales materials. Judy Cullins © 2004 All Rights Reserved Judy Cullins, 20-year Book and Internet Marketing Coach works with small business people who want to make a difference in people's lives, build their credibility and clients, and make a consistent life-long income. Judy is author of 10 eBooks including Write your eBook or Other Short Book Fast, Ten Non-Techie Ways to Market Your Book Online, The Fast and Cheap Way to Explode Your Targeted Web Traffic, and Power Writing for Web Sites That Sell. She offers free help through her 2 monthly ezines, "The BookCoach Says...," "Business Tip of the Month," blog Q & A at http://www.bookcoaching.com and over 185 free articles. ===============
|
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
FSBO Author believes in Bookswaps Hi Noel, Top Ten Non-Techie Steps to Market your Book Online Are you an author who is looking for new ways to promote your book or business? Does the traditional promotion you do take too long and not bring you top results? Are you willing to investigate easy non-techie ways to get more book buyers? Dont Sell your Book, Share It Most authors who aren't used to speaking before a group think, "I'd rather get a root canal than have to 'sell' my book." If you think about how great your book is, how you wrote it because you wanted to help or entertain your audience, you can change this fear to the idea of sharing your book. Top 5 Book Selling Tips TIP # 1 Publishing Your Book?What Way is Best For You? - Part 2 Your print or ebook is nearly finished. You wonder if you should try to get an agent to represent you to the publisher. Maybe you've already sent out your query letter to some agents. You dream how great it would be to be taken under the publisher's wings. Book Club Sales -- Increasing the Odds What is a book club sale? It is actually a rights sale or a licensing agreement: you are granting permission to a book club the right to "borrow" your work. You have written a book, and now you are allowing a book club to print and distribute your book to its members. Top Ten Basics on Internet Article Writing to Promote your Book Whether you have already written articles and published them or not, you may want to check out the difference between writing for online ezines and web sites and writing for print media. While some writing concepts work for both, online writing needs a shorter, more focused approach. How to Sell Your E-book - (or other information product) - Through Quickie Seminars I've been selling my own self-published information products (mainly e-books) online for the past 3 years. Is it profitable? Definitely. Looking to Sell Your Book for a Good Price? Many self-publishing authors plan on eventually selling theirbook to a large publisher at a good price. The fast track way toachieve this goal is to push up the market value of a book with apush v. pull strategy. This article shows you how to do exactlythat, using a simple Internet strategy that any self-publishercan afford. The Booklet Journey Opening a New World 1991 was a pivotal year in my life. My professional organizing business was 8 years old. Book Marketing 101 - Setting up Author Events and Book Signings -- Get the Most from Book Publicity We all have at one time or another had the fantasy of our books being absolutely indispensable to readers - and that our genius is immediately recognizable even without the benefit of creating awareness or self-promotion. Well, for some very famous authors this may be true - but then again, publishers still spend millions of dollars promoting even the greatest writers' books. Having your book recognized for the high quality endeavor that it is, and selling some in the process, really is ALL about an awareness of both you as an author and your book. One of the hard truths of the self-publishing industry is that authors must work diligently to create a market for their books - and all without the multi-million dollar budgets of the big publishers. Super Profitable Techniques for Selling Books By Mail The total number of books sold by small, part-time mail orderentrepreneurs is growing each year. Total sales each year for thepast five years have increased by almost 30-percent over theprevious year's sales. How to Make Money With Your Short Stories, Poems, Essays, and Novels Recently, someone rated my "Online Book Marketing" article a 2 out of 5. That person apparently didn't like the article. My guess is that he or she was turned off by the marketing angle. Writers write; they don't sell. Some writers even view the concept of selling or marketing their work as somehow inherently wrong. Book Titles that Make Big Bucks Do you know how readers decide to buy a book? 1) They get a referral from a friend. 2) They see an interesting book title on the best-seller list. 3) They look up a topic (generally non-fiction) and look for a book closest to their interest (generally based on titles). 4) They browse in the bookstore looking for an interesting title ? then they read the book jacket copy. 5) They look on an Internet bookseller's website to find out what other people bought under that title or subject, then they look at book reviews. 6) Finally, generally based on title and book jacket copy or book reviews, they buy your book. Five Book Back Cover Mistakes and How to Solve Them Did you know that your back cover information is, after the cover, the best way to sell more books? And, that most authors, emerging and experienced, miss this opportunity to engage more potential buyers? Marketing Virus ? Every Writer Needs to Catch It For you writers aspiring to greatness, you might need a virus, before you can be great! You need a Marketing Virus. Every unknown writer needs a virus that will spread like the deadliest bug known to man. How to Market Your Unsold Books on the Internet: Its Easy Your book expresses your wondrous information, your creativity, and your genius. It's your dream come true. Or is it? You have already tried a few venues--maybe an expo, book signings, press releases, book reviews, distributors, wholesalers, speaking and book tours. Plays Well With Others to Become an Instant Author You wrote a tips booklet. Maybe more than one. Oh wait, are you one of the people who is still thinking about doing one? Not to worry. Wait 'til you see how easy this gets. Raise Your Hand If Youd Consider Giving Up The Rights To Your Book Forever If Random House pulls up to your house with a U-haul filled with millions and wants to buy your book, maybe you'd consider giving up the rights forever. But, let's come back to the real world. In the real world, many authors find that the best way to launch a writing career is to essentially self-publish by using a print-on-demand (POD) publisher. Book Signings Are Pure Gold So you've written a book, had it published by a publishing company and you are now facing the dreaded book signing or book launch. Your palms sweat at the thought of facing droves of people and actually having to talk to them. You are a writer, not a salesperson, right? Wrong! If you do not have the guts and determination to sell your own work, then why should anyone else do it for you?
|
| © Athifea Distribution LLC - 2013 |