Reach your ideal readers

I recently attended a webinar featuring Dan Blank and hosted by Jane Friedman. It was eye-opening for me, and I want to share some of what I learned with you. For those who resonate with the blog post I’m about to write, I highly recommend Dan’s book, Be the Gateway: A Practical Guide to Sharing Your Creative Work and Engaging an Audience.

The webinar focused on identifying and finding your ideal readers, but I’m only going to talk about one small part of the material Dan presented: that is, how to define your key message and why it’s important to do so.

The Problem

As independent authors, we need to find a way to reach the readers of our books. We all know that much. We also know that doing so is easier said than done. Learning how to talk about our books is only the first hurdle. I’m sure at some point, you have put together a three-sentence summary you could use as an elevator pitch for anyone who might inquire what your book is about. But even if you’ve memorized this pitch, it’s easy to freeze up while in the middle of it, or to worry that you’re boring the listener, or to simply wonder why they have that strange, baffled look on their face.

That’s because reciting an elevator pitch isn’t the same as engaging with a person. It’s not a conversation. It’s just you speaking words and hoping that whoever you’re talking to will hear something they can grab on to.

If you want to hook a potential reader, you must engage them in some way. In other words, it’s more about them than it is about you or your book.

Okay, Kim, so how do we do it?

The Solution

According to Dan Blank, the key to engaging people in a conversation of your work is something he calls “human-centered marketing.” At the center of human-centered marketing is the age-old activity of connecting with people in a personal way. Every time you have an interesting conversation with someone, you’re connecting in a personal way. It’s a natural thing that human beings do, social animals that we are.

For instance, you’re at a family gathering and your cousin starts talking about her dog and how he does this adorable thing, and it leads to a conversation about how much you care about animals and are against animal lab testing. Your cousin says that that’s an important issue in her life as well, and the two of you share your experiences with Peta and the Humane Society for the next hour. The two of you are engaging in conversation that is interesting to the both of you.

Similarly, when someone asks us about our work, Dan suggests we focus on sharing experiences that we’ve had, conversations we often have, and simply the things in life that interest us the most.

When someone brings up the subject of our books, instead of giving them a memorized short summary of the plot, we can talk about what’s important to us personally and how those subjects show up in the stories we write.

When this happens, we are sharing what Dan calls our “key messages.”

“I Believe” Statements

To find out what your key messages are, write a bunch of “I believe” statements. By a bunch, I mean as many as you can think of. It might even be one hundred. But it doesn’t have to be. Start by trying to write one dozen.

For instance, you might say, “I believe in family more than anything. If a person doesn’t have family, they won’t feel at home in the world around them.”

Or, “I believe that creativity is the bridge that connects all human beings, no matter where they come from or what language they speak.”

Or, “I believe that animal testing is a form of torture that should be banished from the earth.”

Whatever your beliefs are, go through your “I believe” statements and consider whether they turn up in the themes present in your books. Usually they will. And that shouldn’t be surprising because most likely you are writing about things that are important to you, things you believe in.

Example

One of my “I believe” statements is that “Miscommunication and misunderstanding are at the heart of all conflict.”

And, yes, this is a theme in both of my novels that make up The Jovian Duology. Though Svetlana (the protagonist) desperately wants to be part of a large family, she can’t seem to find common ground with her new husband’s relatives. Worse than that, their eccentric attempts to connect with her backfire over and over again.

Write a dozen or more “I believe” statements and see what you come up with. These will be topics that are great for starting conversations. They might even be topics that you already talk about all the time, and that, yes, you write about. Because these are the topics you’re passionate about.

Put It to Use

If someone asks you about your book, and you start by saying, “You know what’s really important to me? Animals. I love animals, and I believe animal testing is wrong on so many levels.”

And the person you’re speaking to says, “Oh my gosh, so do I. I can’t agree with you more.”

And then you say, “In all of my books, I address this issue in some way. Themes concerning animal rights and how we treat all living creatures and how that reflects on our society.”

“That sounds amazing,” the person you’re talking to says. “And what is your book called?”

Someone like this, who becomes excited about your books when you describe them this way is potentially an ideal reader, and your conversation may take you into a short summary of your book, which is fine. But make sure you lead with the “I believe” statement first. That’s the hook. That’s the engaging part that tells so much about your work.

If the person you are talking to simply stares or looks away and doesn’t engage, then most likely they are not a good fit for your book. They don’t value that particular belief, or it doesn’t concern them, or it rubs them the wrong way for whatever reason, and that’s fine. The book is not for them.

Take It Further

You can use these “I believe” statements to help write your book description, to write your bio, and to nail down the experiences you want your writing to create for the reader.

The idea is to engage with people (readers) the way you naturally would. Have a conversation; tell them what’s important to you. And maybe, just maybe, some of those things will also be important to them.

Kim Catanzarite is the author of the award-winning Jovian Duology, a sci-fi thriller. She is a freelance writer and editor for publishers and independent authors and teaches copyediting for Writer’s Digest University. She lives on the east coast USA with her husband and daughter.