In my discussions with writers, a major concern they have is crossing the line from friendly to pushy in their marketing. In Part One we looked at how to make sure your marketing is purposeful not pushy by treating it like a RELATIONSHIP, ASKING QUESTIONS, and BEING POLITE.
Whether you’re writing website content, social media posts or query letters, there is a line between professional and annoying. Here are some more tips to ensure you find that balance as you reach out to potential and existing readers.
Make it PERSONAL not WEIRD
Make it personal
If you’re querying agents, do your research. Address the email to their first name rather than to ‘Dear agent’. With social media and the internet it shouldn’t be too hard to find out their name.
If you’ve met them at a conference, mention when and where, the workshop you attended, what you appreciated about their workshop. But don’t talk about the spinach that was stuck in their teeth over that lunch you shared. In fact, don’t comment on their looks at all! Believe it or not, I’ve actually seen more than one literary agent tweet about writers doing this in their query letters. It’s not professional, it’s not relevant. Don’t do it.
If the agent represents an author who you’ve chosen as a comparable, refer to that. In fact, this is a good starting point in making a list of target literary agents. Writers often thank their agents in their acknowledgements, and agents often list their clients on their websites.
Be DIRECT not BOSSY
Whether you’re querying an agent, asking readers for feedback, or reaching out to your email database, don’t tiptoe around your request. You don’t need to preface your question with phrases like ‘if you have time’, ‘if it’s not too much trouble’, ‘I know you’re probably too busy to but …’. Again, I’ve seen literary agents bemoan this practice on Twitter. It doesn’t motivate a reader to keep reading if you start like this. Don’t decide ‘no’ for your audience. Just ask them what it is you would like them to do and leave them to make the decision. They will be professional enough to decide if they are too busy, if they have the time, if it’s too much trouble.
You can follow up with agents, readers, your email database after a period of time. That’s professional, not pushy. However, what you can’t do is tell them what to think or get cross with them if they don’t respond the way you want them to.
Be CONFIDENT not COCKY
If you’ve done your research, then you should be addressing an agent, editor or reader who may well be interested in what you’ve written. You have every right to contact them, politely and professionally. Literary agents are looking for new writers (and if they’re not, that will be clear on their website – don’t query them if that is the case). Editors are looking for great stories. Readers are looking for new books to buy.
What you need to do is be honest about what you’ve written. Read widely to try and find comparable books, or two books which have elements of what you’ve written: ‘Jane Eyre meets The Space Odyssey’. (Now, that would be interesting!) Be clear what genre you fall into. Run your selected genre and comparable titles by a trusted acquaintance who won’t beat about the bush with you. One of the most common mistakes I see is emerging writers comparing their work to books which are of a very high calibre. It’s understandable – we choose these books because they are well known and we want to quickly be able to position our work in the minds of our readers. We just better be sure our writing lives up to our promise!
Create VALUE not NOISE
The easiest place to be pushy is on social media. We can post more or less what we like, as often as we like, with very little sanction. However, tweeting ‘Buy my book’ numerous times a day crosses the boundary to annoying. Still, I see writers doing this every day. It’s because we mistakenly believe that if we get the message out there enough times to enough people, something will stick. Otherwise known as the scattergun approach.
[bctt tweet=”The best marketing is about finding the right people for your product not the most people.” username=”SarahSambles”]
For an emerging writer we’re essentially asking a reader to buy a book from a perfect stranger. Why should they? We need a good answer to this question, and ‘because it’s good’ doesn’t cut it.
So, help those on social media figure out if you’re the writer for them by:
- Asking questions – the ones that respond are probably the ones with whom you can build a business relationship. At the least their answers might help you in building your business
- Offering something for free – yes, some people just like free stuff, but the people who really like your stuff will come back for more, and at some point they’ll part with cash for it
- Positioning your writing accurately – be honest about the genre and comparable titles
- Identifying the hook – find fun ways to tweet about that rather than just pushing the title of your book
At the end of the day: readers are looking for new stories, editors are looking for great books and literary agents are looking for talented writers. There’s nothing wrong with reaching out to these people and telling them what we have to offer. We just need to do it professionally. Do you want help figuring out how best to get your message in front of potential readers? Contact me to find an option that works for you, or take a look at my coaching packages for writers, coaches and educators.
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