In previous articles, I’ve encouraged you to look at other books and think about how your book will be different and I also asked you to put on your marketing hat and write out some of the elements of a book proposal, including who will read your book.
Once you’re in that marketing copywriting mood, I want you to dig deeper into the mindset of your target reader. Create a clear picture in your mind of exactly who is reading your book and why.
You might be thinking I’m kind of harping on this idea, but there’s a reason for it. Before I started writing and publishing my own books, I was a non-fiction editor for a lot of years. Whenever I was asked to “take a look” at a book project where the book author got “stuck,” it almost always came down to the same problem. The author was flailing around struggling to complete the book because he had no idea who would actually read it.
If you really think about the reader and get inside his or her head, it’s not only easier to write the book, the book itself is much better in the end. So when you’re writing your marketing copy and also the book itself, visualize your reader:
- Is your reader is male or female? (It doesn’t matter if both genders will read your book; it’s just easier to pick one so you can imagine him or her more easily.)
- Is he a beginner or does he know a lot about the subject?
- What are his day to day concerns
- What is he interested in?
- Where does he live?
- Where does he work?
By getting into the mindset of the target reader, you can drill down to the book’s unique selling proposition. This USP is the big idea or solution that will cause your target reader to pull out his or her credit card and buy the book. There’s absolutely no way you can know what makes your book unique until you you understand your target reader first.