What do these new titles mean? As marketing manager, you have to spread the word on your book and create a buzz about it.
This will get some folks interested in or curious about the book.
These folks will visit your selling site.
As sales manager your job is to convert these visitors to customers.
Your differentiation statements are the key to converting the visitors.
These statements tell the world why your book matters and why readers should buy it.
This is a vital aspect of self-marketing.
Consider this, thousands of new books become available every month.
Consequently, your book is competing against all these other books for the readers' attention and money.
Your book has to stand out from all the others and persuade readers to shell out money to get a copy.
Marketing and selling on the internet is an entirely different process from other, more traditional sales channels.
There are two primary reasons for this difference.
First, you are selling from websites, not in-person.
You don't know the website visitors and the majority of them don't know you.
A second reason is that website visitors are capricious and fleeting; they don't act like potential customers in a brick-and-mortar bookstore.
Those customers wander around browsing.
Website visitors don't.
To sell your book, you have to devise a sales plan.
Yeah, a sales plan.
You're the sales manager in charge of selling the book and sales managers develop sales plans.
After you develop the plan, you then implement it.
One vital element in a sales plan is the differentiation statement.
Once the statement is developed, you can use it in a number of places to attract readers' interest.
The good news about the statement is, that unlike many other marketing activities, it's free.
It can also be completed before the book is published.
I start working on a differentiation statement for a new book long before the book is finished.
This gives me ample time to tinker with the messages and to perfect them.
There are three tasks involved in developing your book's differentiation statement.
You need a Pitch Line then you have to answer two questions.
The first is: What's in it for the buyer? and the second is: What's different about this book? Essentially, what this process entails is developing three sentences or short paragraphs that can be used to sell your book.
The pitch line is the hook to grab the readers' attention.
Its purpose is to persuade the reader to read the two statements that follow the pitch line.
The pitch line should be simple, a few sentences at most, and it must make a clear statement about your book.
What's in it for the buyers? is a statement that explains what the reader (i.
e.
a book buyer) will get in exchange for money.
This must be explicit.
This statement is not the place to get cute.
Don't come across like the legendary used-car salesman.
Tell the readers what benefit they'll get from buying the book.
Think of this statement in this way: If your book is surrounded by hundreds of books on a shelf in bookstore, what would persuade the buyer to choose your book instead of one of the others? What's different about this book? With all the books published every month, what makes your book stand out from the others? These dry descriptions are difficult to grasp so I'll use an example I made up.
Your name is Homer and you're a wandering storyteller who travels from village to village telling a long tale you wrote about a war.
You can usually count on getting a free bed and food from the villagers, but you now think you're ready for prime time in the major Greek cities.
You think long and hard about how to let the big city leaders know about your story and get them interested in hearing it.
So you develop a differentiation statement.
After it's finished, you hire a messenger to deliver the statement to Athens, Sparta, Thebes, and Corinth.
Here is your differentiation statement.
Pitch: A wanton queen runs away with a handsome visiting prince and touches off a great war.
What's in it for the listener? Graphic descriptions of a nasty war, great heroes, interfering gods and goddesses.
The story is the culmination of a ten-year war.
What's different about this story? The tale demonstrates the superiority of the Greek culture and warriors.
Against the greatest power in the Aegean world, the Greek army fights it's way to the unconquerable walled city of Troy.
Do you get the idea? How do you start? Take a blank sheet of paper or a start a new mind map file on your computer.
Jot down every possible idea that comes to you for each of the three statements.
Don't eliminate any ideas because you think they are too dumb.
This 'dumb idea' may trigger a great thought or two later on.
Keep refining the ideas.
Add more ideas, combine others.
Eventually, the ideas will get distilled down to a few key thoughts, but it may take more than a single session to get there.
The next step is to cloak the remaining ideas in sentences for each component of the statement.
This is another repetitive exercise.
Keep writing new sentences, rephrase them, combine them, rearrange them.
Over time, your differentiation statements will evolve.
Once you develop the complete statement, don't sit back and relax.
You need at least one, preferably two, paraphrases of the message.
These are used to repeat the message -- to emphasize it -- without using the same words.
What do you do with these statements after you develop them? You stick them anywhere they'll fit.
On your website, on blogs, on ads, press releases, in your trailer.
If you can't fit the entire statement someplace (such as Twitter), use the pitch line by itself.
Here are some uses for the differentiation statement.
BOOK COVERS If your book has a print version, the back cover is the ideal place to put your differentiation statement.
If you're like me, when you pick up a book, you look at the rear cover.
A great differentiation statement can make the difference between the customer choosing your book or putting it back on the shelf.
Obviously, to get it on the rear cover, you'll need to develop the statements in advance of submitting the cover.
WEBSITE USE On your book-buying website page, make the pitch line the opening statement followed by the rest of your differentiation message.
Why? Earlier, I mentioned that on the internet, visitors are capricious and their attention span is too minuscule to measure.
When these visitors land on your web page, you have a second or two to persuade them to read beyond the first line of text they see.
That is the job of your pitch line: to get the visitors to read further.
The next statement (what's in it for the buyer) has to tell them there is something of value here, something they can use or enjoy.
Finally, your page tells them what is different about your book, what is in it that they can't get elsewhere.
If this works, the visitors will read even further where they can learn how to get a copy and how much it'll cost.
If you get a sale, you have accomplished the difficult process of converting a visitor to a customer.
TRAILER USE Make sure your differentiation statements are clearly visible and emphasized in the trailer.
Get the message in the beginning and the end of the trailer.
Innumerable people from all over the world can view the trailer and you want them to understand your message.
When you get a first cut of the trailer, make sure the statements come across.
If they don't, tell the trailer company to modify the trailer.
INTERNET ANNOUNCEMENTS Log onto social media sites and post an announcement that your book is available.
Include the differentiation message in the announcement.
If space is limited, make sure the pitch line is in the announcement.
Log onto book sites like Goodreads and Librarything.
Add information about your book.
You can upload the cover and add descriptive text about it.
Make sure that text includes your differentiation messages and place it early in the text.
PRESS RELEASES Display your differentiation messages prominently.
Make them the opening statement in the body of the release.
Rephrase the message and place it a second time further down in the body.
EMAIL Use the signature capability in your email program to build a unique signature using the pitch line by itself.
Link that pitch line to your book-selling website.
Now, every time you send an email, you'll also be pitching your book.
BOOKBUZZR This is a website that allows you to give potential buyers an opportunity to read a sample of your book.
I put these widgets on the buy page for each of my books.
If a visitor clicks on the widget, they are shown a "The Story Behind the Book" blurb while the sample loads.
This is an ideal spot to put a paraphrased differentiation statement.
It will prime the reader for the sample.
It should be a paraphrased version because the reader may have already read the primary statement on the website before clicking on the Bookbuzzr widget.
MEDIA KIT Make sure your media kit includes the statements when you describe your book because media types need to be impressed just as website visitors do.
GIVEAWAYS Get the statement, or at least the pitch line, on bookmarks and business cards.
In conclusion, let me say that once your differentiation statements are completed, you've taken a big step toward getting people to buy your book.
Always look for additional opportunities to display it.
Keep going! You can do this!
This will get some folks interested in or curious about the book.
These folks will visit your selling site.
As sales manager your job is to convert these visitors to customers.
Your differentiation statements are the key to converting the visitors.
These statements tell the world why your book matters and why readers should buy it.
This is a vital aspect of self-marketing.
Consider this, thousands of new books become available every month.
Consequently, your book is competing against all these other books for the readers' attention and money.
Your book has to stand out from all the others and persuade readers to shell out money to get a copy.
Marketing and selling on the internet is an entirely different process from other, more traditional sales channels.
There are two primary reasons for this difference.
First, you are selling from websites, not in-person.
You don't know the website visitors and the majority of them don't know you.
A second reason is that website visitors are capricious and fleeting; they don't act like potential customers in a brick-and-mortar bookstore.
Those customers wander around browsing.
Website visitors don't.
To sell your book, you have to devise a sales plan.
Yeah, a sales plan.
You're the sales manager in charge of selling the book and sales managers develop sales plans.
After you develop the plan, you then implement it.
One vital element in a sales plan is the differentiation statement.
Once the statement is developed, you can use it in a number of places to attract readers' interest.
The good news about the statement is, that unlike many other marketing activities, it's free.
It can also be completed before the book is published.
I start working on a differentiation statement for a new book long before the book is finished.
This gives me ample time to tinker with the messages and to perfect them.
There are three tasks involved in developing your book's differentiation statement.
You need a Pitch Line then you have to answer two questions.
The first is: What's in it for the buyer? and the second is: What's different about this book? Essentially, what this process entails is developing three sentences or short paragraphs that can be used to sell your book.
The pitch line is the hook to grab the readers' attention.
Its purpose is to persuade the reader to read the two statements that follow the pitch line.
The pitch line should be simple, a few sentences at most, and it must make a clear statement about your book.
What's in it for the buyers? is a statement that explains what the reader (i.
e.
a book buyer) will get in exchange for money.
This must be explicit.
This statement is not the place to get cute.
Don't come across like the legendary used-car salesman.
Tell the readers what benefit they'll get from buying the book.
Think of this statement in this way: If your book is surrounded by hundreds of books on a shelf in bookstore, what would persuade the buyer to choose your book instead of one of the others? What's different about this book? With all the books published every month, what makes your book stand out from the others? These dry descriptions are difficult to grasp so I'll use an example I made up.
Your name is Homer and you're a wandering storyteller who travels from village to village telling a long tale you wrote about a war.
You can usually count on getting a free bed and food from the villagers, but you now think you're ready for prime time in the major Greek cities.
You think long and hard about how to let the big city leaders know about your story and get them interested in hearing it.
So you develop a differentiation statement.
After it's finished, you hire a messenger to deliver the statement to Athens, Sparta, Thebes, and Corinth.
Here is your differentiation statement.
Pitch: A wanton queen runs away with a handsome visiting prince and touches off a great war.
What's in it for the listener? Graphic descriptions of a nasty war, great heroes, interfering gods and goddesses.
The story is the culmination of a ten-year war.
What's different about this story? The tale demonstrates the superiority of the Greek culture and warriors.
Against the greatest power in the Aegean world, the Greek army fights it's way to the unconquerable walled city of Troy.
Do you get the idea? How do you start? Take a blank sheet of paper or a start a new mind map file on your computer.
Jot down every possible idea that comes to you for each of the three statements.
Don't eliminate any ideas because you think they are too dumb.
This 'dumb idea' may trigger a great thought or two later on.
Keep refining the ideas.
Add more ideas, combine others.
Eventually, the ideas will get distilled down to a few key thoughts, but it may take more than a single session to get there.
The next step is to cloak the remaining ideas in sentences for each component of the statement.
This is another repetitive exercise.
Keep writing new sentences, rephrase them, combine them, rearrange them.
Over time, your differentiation statements will evolve.
Once you develop the complete statement, don't sit back and relax.
You need at least one, preferably two, paraphrases of the message.
These are used to repeat the message -- to emphasize it -- without using the same words.
What do you do with these statements after you develop them? You stick them anywhere they'll fit.
On your website, on blogs, on ads, press releases, in your trailer.
If you can't fit the entire statement someplace (such as Twitter), use the pitch line by itself.
Here are some uses for the differentiation statement.
BOOK COVERS If your book has a print version, the back cover is the ideal place to put your differentiation statement.
If you're like me, when you pick up a book, you look at the rear cover.
A great differentiation statement can make the difference between the customer choosing your book or putting it back on the shelf.
Obviously, to get it on the rear cover, you'll need to develop the statements in advance of submitting the cover.
WEBSITE USE On your book-buying website page, make the pitch line the opening statement followed by the rest of your differentiation message.
Why? Earlier, I mentioned that on the internet, visitors are capricious and their attention span is too minuscule to measure.
When these visitors land on your web page, you have a second or two to persuade them to read beyond the first line of text they see.
That is the job of your pitch line: to get the visitors to read further.
The next statement (what's in it for the buyer) has to tell them there is something of value here, something they can use or enjoy.
Finally, your page tells them what is different about your book, what is in it that they can't get elsewhere.
If this works, the visitors will read even further where they can learn how to get a copy and how much it'll cost.
If you get a sale, you have accomplished the difficult process of converting a visitor to a customer.
TRAILER USE Make sure your differentiation statements are clearly visible and emphasized in the trailer.
Get the message in the beginning and the end of the trailer.
Innumerable people from all over the world can view the trailer and you want them to understand your message.
When you get a first cut of the trailer, make sure the statements come across.
If they don't, tell the trailer company to modify the trailer.
INTERNET ANNOUNCEMENTS Log onto social media sites and post an announcement that your book is available.
Include the differentiation message in the announcement.
If space is limited, make sure the pitch line is in the announcement.
Log onto book sites like Goodreads and Librarything.
Add information about your book.
You can upload the cover and add descriptive text about it.
Make sure that text includes your differentiation messages and place it early in the text.
PRESS RELEASES Display your differentiation messages prominently.
Make them the opening statement in the body of the release.
Rephrase the message and place it a second time further down in the body.
EMAIL Use the signature capability in your email program to build a unique signature using the pitch line by itself.
Link that pitch line to your book-selling website.
Now, every time you send an email, you'll also be pitching your book.
BOOKBUZZR This is a website that allows you to give potential buyers an opportunity to read a sample of your book.
I put these widgets on the buy page for each of my books.
If a visitor clicks on the widget, they are shown a "The Story Behind the Book" blurb while the sample loads.
This is an ideal spot to put a paraphrased differentiation statement.
It will prime the reader for the sample.
It should be a paraphrased version because the reader may have already read the primary statement on the website before clicking on the Bookbuzzr widget.
MEDIA KIT Make sure your media kit includes the statements when you describe your book because media types need to be impressed just as website visitors do.
GIVEAWAYS Get the statement, or at least the pitch line, on bookmarks and business cards.
In conclusion, let me say that once your differentiation statements are completed, you've taken a big step toward getting people to buy your book.
Always look for additional opportunities to display it.
Keep going! You can do this!
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