[authorme] PUBLISHING EMERGING WRITERS, DECEMBER 2014
- From: Bruce Cook <cookcomm@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: Newsletter <authorme@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2014 11:27:58 -0600
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*In this issue... Content Marketing, Writing Style*
============================================================
*Marketing: How Content*
*Marketing Works by Randy Ingermanson*
*A classic way* of marketing your products is to give
away free samples. The nice lady who gives you free samples of cheese at
Safeway isn't just being nice. She's promoting cheese.
*When your product* is information, this kind of marketing
is called "content marketing." You are giving away free content to
promote your paid content.
*The sample chapters* on most Amazon book pages are an example
of content marketing. So are free book promotions, book trailers, blogs,
podcasts, and author web sites. This e-zine is an example of content marketing.
*Content marketing* is a great way to get the word out about
your products.
*You can *do it well or you can do it badly.
*I believe* that the way to do it well is to give
away content that is all of the following:
- Valuable
- Unique
- Understandable
- Entertaining
*Why give away valuable **content?*
*Because* it's really poor advertising to give
away mediocre content. If the lady at Safeway gives you a piece of moldy
cheese, are you going to buy any of that brand of cheese ever in your life?
*You don't want *to receive mediocre freebies. Treat your
customers the way you want to be treated.
*If you give* something away, make it the absolute
best quality you can. Give away your gold.
*If you give* away your copper in the hopes that
people will buy your gold, you're fooling yourself, but you aren't fooling
anybody else.
*Why give away unique content?*
*Because* if you're giving away freebies that they
can get pretty much anywhere, then there's no reason anyone would come
to you to get the goodies.
*But if* you're the only game in town, then
that's a different story.
*A few years ago*, my friend Perry Marshall ran a major
marketing conference in Maui. Perry’s a marketing guru, and his teaching is
top-quality. As an incentive to register for his conference, he gave away brand
new Mac laptops to everyone who came. Not just any laptops. The latest model.
You could barely find them anywhere in stores yet. But you could get one free
by going to Perry's conference. Perry made a special deal with Apple to get
them early.
*Think he made a
splash? *Better believe he did.
Valuable AND unique.
*Of course*, that was Xtreme, but Perry knows that his
content is good, so he’s not afraid to go way out on a limb to promote his
stuff.
*Why give away understandable content?*
*Because* nobody wants complicated. Your free
goodies may be brilliant, one-of-a-kind stuff, but if nobody can figure out
what you're saying, then you might as well be mumbling Sanskrit.
*Keep* it simple. Don't make people feel
stupid.
*Why give away entertaining content? *
*Because* nobody likes boring. Even if it's
valuable, unique, and understandable.
*Even boring people* don't like boring people. Yes, that’s
tragic, but there’s a magic fix. Don’t be boring.
*But isn’t free bad?*
*I often hear* from authors that we're training readers
to expect everything to be free. That nobody is going to want to pay for books
in the future. That we're cutting our own throats by giving away our fiction or
other stuff.
*Wrong*.
*Giving away* free samples is a quick way to tell the
world who you are. Just be careful that you send the right message.
- When you give away mediocre
stuff, you are telling people that you are mediocre.
- When you give away things that
people could get anywhere, you are telling people you've got
nothing new to say.
- When you give away ten cent
ideas dressed in ten dollar words, you are telling people you
don't know what you're talking about.
- When you give away boring
stuff, you are teaching people to hate you
*When you give away* valuable, unique, understandable,
entertaining goodies -- when you give away your gold -- you are telling people
that your paid products are EVEN BETTER.
*Sure*, there will always be people who only want
the free stuff.
*But you will never* run out of people who are eager to pay
for the best you've got.
*Don't be afraid* of content marketing.
*Be afraid* of content marketing that is not
valuable, unique, understandable, and entertaining.
*If you run* a free promotion on Amazon, make it one
of your best books.
*If you create *a book trailer for your book, make it a
fantastic one -- or don't do it at all. Because you really don’t want to be the
Trailer of the Day on *BookTrailerFail.com*
*If you blog*, make every entry the best idea you've got on
that particular day.
*If you podcast*, ditto.
*Likewise* for every page of your web site.
*If you’re terrified* that you’ll end up doing fewer things so
you can do them better, then quit worrying. That’s a brilliant strategy.
*Valuable*. Unique. Understandable. Entertaining.
*Four words *to live by.
This article is reprinted by permission of the author.
Award-winning novelist Randy Ingermanson, "the Snowflake Guy,"
publishes the free monthly Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine, with over
5,000 readers. If you want to learn the craft and marketing of
fiction, AND make your writing more valuable to editors,
AND have FUN doing it, visitwww.AdvancedFictionWriting.com
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============
*You Are What You Write*
*by Bruce L. Cook*
Your writing style is easy to recognize for someone who knows your work. As
a writer you are quick to recognize your own writing style. (Imagine a
situation where another writer has quoted your work without giving you
credit. When this happens, you’ll notice it immediately.)
For example, this is exactly what happened in this issue of Emerging
Writers.
You may have heard that, in the early days of communication, a Morse Code
operator could recognize the “hand” of other code operators. In the same
way, our use of words and syntax, our idiomatic choices, and our pace just
gives us away. In fact, if you are looking for employment as a writer, you
may find it tough or easy to be hired depending on preferences of the
person or organization who is hiring. In this case, the decision is not
whether your writing is excellent – it’s a question of whether you have the
“voice” that’s wanted.
Any sensitive reader can detect variations in writing style. Here’s a
caution. In the case of students who are hurrying to complete an assignment
on time, there’s a temptation to quote verbatim and at length from a
technical document and bury the text deep in a middle section of the
report. That way the report is assuredly accurate. Such a hurried writer
may well assume that the reader would never notice that part of the report
was copied from elsewhere. A word to the wise – if you do quote verbatim in
your report, be certain to indent that section and include a reference to
the source. Without that, the report will become a serious liability, not
at all a credit to your name.
It’s a question of ethical attribution. Some writers might want to avoid
this because it’s so difficult to format bibliographic indicia. However,
it’s always essential to give credit to the book or article you are quoting.
In any case, writing style represents you. Make it reflect your spirit. Pay
attention to it, too, perhaps by asking readers to describe their reaction
to your style. Then, if they find you too detailed, stilted, etc., work on
your style to make it more successful.
We could say, “You are what you write!”
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…
Publishing Emerging Writers
Decemober 2014 (No. 1512)
Publisher: Cookcomm
Bruce L. Cook, 1407 Getzelman Dr..
Elgin, IL 60123 USA
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