6 Quick Notes on Blurb Writing

Some have described your blurb as your pick-up line for readers, others simply call it a hook. I like to think of it as an elevator pitch. The idea behind the elevator pitch in business is to convince someone of your idea in the time it takes to take an elevator ride. This means your pitch needs to be succinct, to-the-point, capture the essence of your story, while not giving everything away, and ensnare your reader in the blink of an eye. Not an easy feed and one of the main reasons why writing blurbs is so tricky. 


Now that I have probably managed to scare you, let me give you 6 pointers on how to write a great blurb for your novel :)
 

Quick Notes on Blurbs: 

1. Keep it short! – A great blurb shouldn’t go beyond 150 words
2. The First Line Hook – like with your actual novel, the first line of your blurb should pack a punch and compel your reader to read on.
3. Character and Conflict – the body of your blurb needs to efficiently establish the character and conflict of your book.
4. Cliffhanger – That doesn’t mean to leave your reader hanging at the end, but to conclude with a note of suspense. 
5. Simplicity is Key – complicated formulations will only hurt you in blurbs. Keep it down to a simple, clever statement of what awaits the reader insight.
6. Don’t Oversell – avoid hyperboles in your blurb and stay away from overly praising your work.

Beyond having these 6 pointers in mind, writing a blurb is like writing the actual novel. You research, you draft, you edit, you rewrite, your beta readers give you their two cents and you rewrite it again until the right medium of elements is achieved. 

Good luck with your fabulous blurb writing in 2014!

Here are some futher blog articles with great tips:

• The 5 Core Elements of a Book Blurb by Frances Reid Rowland at standoutbooks.com
• How To Write A Back Blurb For Your Book by Joanna Penn at www.thecreativepenn.com 
• How To Write A Book Cover Blurb by Light Messages Publishing 

Book Cover Design: 4 Corner Stones for Positioning with Book Covers

Your book cover is the first impression you make on a potential reader. One cover, one chance. 

Book covers are an essential marketing tool which should position your book in your reader's mind at a single glance. We can also usually tell which genre a book belongs to simply by its cover. Seems like a tall order for a single image design?

Maybe, but that also means that if you get it right you can set your book apart.

Here are four corner stones you should keep in mind when starting out on your cover design:

     1. Let potential readers know that they are purchasing quality literary content

A sleezy or poorly designed cover will hardly inspire confidence in a reader that the content is any more professional.

     2. Design with your reader in mind

Your design has to appeal to your segment of readers and not only to you. Look at how covers in your chosen genre are normally designed and try to replicate the basic concept. By replicate I mean for example looking at the general balance of headline font size in comparison with the rest of the text you wish to see on your cover. Other elements you should study are the image choice - does it hint at the story unfolding in the page? -, imagery type and the position of the author name. To make your life even easier concentrate on the bestselling titles within your target genre. 

     3. Stand out among other covers in your target market segment while not completely departing from the general genre look and feel

While you might have success by absolutely departing from the general genre look and feel in your design, there are smaller tweaks you can add to give your design a unique touch.

Here are several ideas on how you can make your book stand out:

1. Add a catchy line from your blurb on your cover. Two lines at most.

2. Add a compelling endorsement. The shorter and snappier, the better.

3. Add a circle badge which emphasises a unique selling point (USP), like:

    - a book comparison reference; e.g.:"For Twillight Lovers"

    - a reference to a bonus inside; e.g.: "Sneak Peek of Dan Brown's Angels and Demons"

    - a bestseller stamp (once you landed on a bestseller list)

4. Make your cover design interactive

Why not give your readers the opportunity to choose the final cover design. Narrow your creative choices down to three versions you like, introduce them on one of your channels (e.g.: blog, facebook, twitter...) and give people the option to vote on their favourite. You can even offer a free give away in return for submitting a vote. This also has the additional benefit of actively reaching out to your reader base before you actually launch. 

Bonus Tip for eBook Covers: Keep your ebook thumbnail images clean

If your eBook thumbnail is too busy it will be drowned out in the search as potential readers browse categories. In an online search, setting readers are most attracted by colours, a clean structure and clear font which translates well into the tiny space of a thumbnail. Too much text will make the small thumbnails too busy and keep your book cover from popping on the page.          

For further tips, here are a few great websites and articles that will help you figure out which cover direction will best fit your book positioning and how you can get to a great cover design:

How To Create a Great Book Cover by Scott Berkun

A behind the scenes look on the cover creation process

The Book Cover Archive and Goodreads

Great websites to get inspired by current bestselling covers in different genres

Book Cover Design by The Creative Penn

A blog post with recommended cover designers

5 Steps for Designing an Ebook Cover by Matthew Weber

Good tips on what to focus on for ebook covers in particular

An Essential Lesson in Online Book Distribution

While online book distribution is not directly related to book positioning, it is an essential pre-requisite in order to be able even to act upon your positioning. The essential lesson here is that:

• Addressing your identified target segment without having your distribution plan mapped out can make your communication less effective.

Firstly, if you can inform your target readers from the beginning on where and when they will be able to get your new ebook, you can save yourself the hassle of having to retouch communications and save your future customers time in having to search for the information in later launch news bulletins. 

Secondly, your online distribution plan will determine how much of your targeted reader community has the potential to be activated. After all, if an ebook I am interested is not available in the format I need, it is unlikely that I will purchase a copy.

Thirdly, knowledge of which distribution channels you will focus on and their individual policies should in turn inform your pricing and marketing strategy. Will you price the book evenly across channels? Will you discount in all channels at the same time or at different points in time?

 However, before we dive too deep into pricing strategy, let's take a look at different distribution options for your ebook.

Direct Sale Vendors

 

Three of the biggest ebook distributors currently in the market are Kindle Direct Publishing, Nook Press and iTunes Connect. They are the e-punlishing arm of Amazon, Barnes&Nobles and Apple, respectively. All three of these Direct Sale Vendors have a device platform (tablets, e-readers) attached, through which you can easily offer ebooks to millions of readers around the world. Publishing through their platforms also assures that readers owning any of these companies' devices will have easy access to your ebook. 

• Kindle Direct Publishing
• Nook Press
• iTunes Connect

Beside these three big players there is another major player that has made a name for themselves in indie publishing industry: Smashwords. Smashwords will round out your distribution portfolio of direct sale vendors nicely making publishing to further device platforms like Kobo, Sony, etc. a one-stop task through their platform.

Direct sale vendors offer their services and platforms in exchange for a portion of your book's list price. This system allows authors more control over their book distribution and marketing than ever before, while at the same time keeping it in the best interest of the direct sale vendor to facilitate you in turning your book into a marketing success. 

Free online book distribution

 

If your goal is to make your book available for free the best address currently is Wattpad. This social writing platform allows you to publish your work chapter by chapter and your readers to subscribe to your individual publications or you as an author. Some established authors like Marian Keyes have actually started to use Wattpad for reader engagement by making free samples or companion pieces to their full-length works available. 

Self-distribution through your author website

 

Another great option to distribute your own book is to make it available directly through your author website. A personal website is essential and should ideally serve as a one-stop-shop for readers concerning everything related to your publications and author brand. It allows you to reach readers that don't have access to the platforms above or who would have to pay additional fees because they do not reside in the main markets where Apple, Barnes&Noble, etc are operating. On top of that, your personal store takes out the middlemen and leaves you with higher royalities. 

When you feel ready to take this steps here are some useful articles and resources on the topic:

• Selling Ebooks Direct: How To Set Up A Simple eBook Store by David Gaughran at davidgaughran.wordpress.com
• How To Set Up Your Own Online Store by Melanie Pinola at lifehacker.com

Online Store Builders:

• Top 10 Online Store Builders
• flickrocket.com

Bonus: Recommended Print-On-Demand Services

 

If you are already a successful online author with an ebook bestseller, you might be interested in making your book available for readers who continue to prefer paperback formats. 

Platforms like CreateSpace and LuLu.com allow authors to print their works while also hooking them up with a network of booksellers as well as online shoppers.

I personally prefer CreateSpace as it is more flexible and does not ask for an upfront investment. Instead your books are printed according to number of orders coming in. Additionally, CreateSpace provides free distribution in return for part of your book's list price similar to the ebook publishing model. Finally, there is an option to use a customisable CreateSpace eStore on your own website to even let readers coming through your website benefit from the distribution services of Amazon. 

Last piece of advice...

 

If you are a new author, I recommend that you take your time to build your distribution network. Don't feel like you need to be everywhere at once and on the very first day. Put together a plan and communicate the roll-out schedule clearly to your target readers. People are usually understanding if you let them know that you are working hard on making your works as easily accessible as possible.

You can even use a staggered distribution roll-out as a way to let readers celebrate several "mini-book launches" with you: simple turn the addition of a new distribution channel into an  event by e.g. engaging your readers through social media or offering initial, short-term discounts on newly launched platforms.

Do you know where you will distribute your book first?

 

Have you figured out your distribution plan?
Share your experience, troubles and tribulations with different distributors in the comments. What is your publishing story?

Good luck with the distribution of your ebooks :)

Recommended Articles

 

• 20 Websites To Sell Your Ebooks by Kay Tan at kongkiat.com 
• How to Publish with KDP by Joleene Naylor at selfpubauthors.com
• Why My E-Book Release Had Greater Success Without Amazon by Stephanie Chandler at openforum.com
• How to Publish Your Book in the iBookstore by Shane Ketterman at copyblogger.com
• How to Publish on Smashwords by Joleene Naylor at selfpubauthors.com
• Self-Publishing and Maximizing Distribution and Revenue by Tiffany White at contentshelf.net

Market Segmentation: 4 Dimensions to Find Your Target Segment

Would a 43-year-old, single investment banker from Brazil be interested in a German children's book?

Do you think he is the reader you should address with "Barnie's Adventures in Playschool"?

Hardly likely. That's were market segmentation for your book comes in.

The benefit of segmenting the book market and identifying your target segment/audience is to ultimately address the right readers. In order to make your final target market more tangible, you can formulate your target segment description in the form of a reader profile. 

Since our time and resources for marketing are limited as a writer, we should invest them into reaching out to the readers that best fit our writer's profile. After all, we would rather be writing than chasing after readers that won't even be interested in what we have to offer. 

On that note, are you ready to figure out the target segment for your book and formulate a reader profile for your book? Let's get to it. :)

How do I segment the market to identify my target group?

Marketers generally use 4 dimensions (demographic, geographic, behavioural and psycho-demographic) to identify the people most likely to buy their products. 

I put together the following matrix of questions to make it easier for you to identify the correct reading audience for your book. Please, pick out the questions you find most relevant (at least 3 out of each) and start taking notes.

Demographic	Geographic
What age, gender, nationality, race or ethnicity of your readers? What is their job? Are they employed or independent? Which generation do they belong to? Baby boomers? Gen X? Millenials/Gen Y? What is their education level? High school diploma? Apprenticeship? College degree? What is their relationship status? Single? Married? Divorced?  Do they have kids? How old are the kids? What is their religion? What are their political affiliations? What is their income? Based on their income how much are they likely to spend on books?	In which country do your readers live? Are there regional differences within the country? Are their cultural differences?  What language do they speak? What is the climate like? Equatorial? Mediterranean? Do they have seasons? Northern vs. Southern hemisphere?
Behavioural	Psycho-demographic
How many books do your readers read in a month? Are they familiar the genre of your book? When, where and how do they read your books? In the evening? On their way to work? On vacation? In one sitting? In several installments? As paperback? Hardcover? eBook? On a tablet, e-reader or on their mobile? Do they buy books based on content or based on price? How willing are they to buy your book? Do they already know your authorbrand? Did they purchase any of your previous books/ the first book in a series or trilogy of yours?	What emotional and attitudional affiliations do your readers have? (e.g.: nerds, emo, scifiers) What lifestyle do they lead? What social class do your readers belong to? Lower, middle, upper? What are your readers’ sctivitie, interest, opinions (AIOs)? What are their goals, beliefs, habits and values?

How to create a reader profile

 

Once you have gathered your answers on a host of the questions above summarise them in a single paragraph. The trick is to use you answers like attributes you would normally attach to a character description. This paragraph on a character will become the reader profile for your book and should guide any future marketing decisions.

I wrote an example reader profile for a guide on self-development for professional women (no clue where that came from, but I don't question my muse in these things):

My target readers are single, middle to upper class female professionals, aged 24-35. They are ambitious, fashionable, career-oriented and health conscious. They look for challenges also in their personal life and are eclectic in their reading habits, enjoying a light chick lit novel as a time-out, planning their fitness programme with a HowTo Guide and but futhering their knowledge with non-fiction books focused on business, historical and political topics. Being mobile, they prefer the ebook format and mostly read in smaller installments on the go. Online they are most active on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Linked In. They are price conscious when it comes to leisure reading, but willing to spend a buck on a non-fiction book.

If you feel like you reader profile is still too vague after the first round of answers, just go back and try to incorporate the answers to a few more questions.

Voila, by formulating your reader profile you now know your target market segment and can let that knowledge inform the next steps in your book position plan. 

Other Useful Articles and Texts on Reader Profiles and Segmentation

Before You Ever Write A Single Word: Develop A Reader Profile by Shannandoah Diaz on WritersDigest.com

Write a Better Book by Targeting Your Audience by Jan Bear on marketyourbookblog.com 

6 Steps to Finding Your Target Market by Shannon on selfpublishingteam.com

Examples of Reader Profiles by Katarina Brookes on SlideShare

Consumer Behaviour - Buying, Having, and Being - Eight Edition by Michael R. Solomon

For a thorough introduction to consumer behaviour and segmentation

Did you figure out your target segment?

What is your reader profile? How did your reader profile help you with your book marketing plan?

Please share your thoughts below in the comments

Why Book Positioning Is The Secret Ingredient

While ideally you would think about book positioning and your target market before even putting down the first word that is not how it happens in most cases. Instead you get struck by a story idea and if you are a seat-of-the-pants writer like me, you will sit down and let that idea flow into words while it is at its most vivid. Who will ever read them is not your first concern.

However, what to do once you realise that you would actually like to publish the book you wrote?

Don't panic. All is not lost if the idea of book positioning doesn't occur to you until the end. In that case you just have to figure out which target group your book is most suited for, instead of defining which target reader you would have liked to written your book for before you got around to the actual writing.

In this series I will give a run-down of things to consider when positioning your book. Let's start with a definition.

What is positioning?

Positioning means "identifying and attempting to occupy a market niche for a brand, product or service utilizing traditional marketing placement strategies (i.e. price, promotion, distribution, packaging, and competition)." Additionally, "[p]ositioning is also defined as the way by which the marketers attempt to create a distinct impression in the customer's mind." - Wikipedia

With the vast competition in the book market of today, it is essential to identify the correct market niche for your book. The goal is not to reach a mass of readers, but instead to address the right kind of readers for your book. In other words, figuring out the best positioning for your book will assure that your limited time and resources for marketing are employed to the greatest effect with a group of people interested specifically in the content you are offering.

Having said that, I will post the following sections of a simple beginner's guide to positioning over the next few weeks. The first section is available today.

The Beginner's Guide to Book Positioning

1. Market Segmentation: 4 Dimensions to Find Your Target Segment 

Learn how to segment the global book market to identify the target market for your book

2. How to Assign your Book to the Right Genre

Getting the genre right further narrows down your target market and ensures that your book messaging addresses the right audience of readers 

3. An Essential Lesson in Online Book Distribution

An overview over some great online distribution channels and sites

4. Price Positioning: Doing Prices the Right Way

Insights on how to research prices for your target segment and genre

5. Book Cover Design: 4 Corner Stones for Positioning through Book Covers

A few guidelines on how to communicate your book positioning in a glance

6. 6 Quick Notes on Blurb Writing

6 pointers on how to compose a compelling, tailored blurb which will encourage potential readers to give your book a chance

Questions to Go

Have you figured out your positioning strategy for your book yet? 

Has refining your understanding of the treated areas helped you shape your book marketing plan? 

Please share your ideas and thoughts in the comments below.