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How To Make Your Readers Continue To Swallow The Bait Page After
We all know that the way you say things is often just as important as what things you say. Expert authors know that they must be careful with the words that they choose. Everything that you put before your readers must not just be engaging, but it has to keep their eyes glued to the page and their hearts pounding with every idea. You are giving them the secrets to make their dreams come true! Who could stop reading that?? Who would WANT to stop reading that??
The format for gluing your readers to your book starts with the title of the book. It should be like the headline of an ad that is pulling in millions of dollars every day.
Next, you need to build great chapter titles. If you see the book title as a headline, consider the chapter titles as the sub-heads. To put it a different way, the headline is the bait that gets the fish to snap, the sub-head is what makes the fish keep chomping so the hook sinks deeper and deeper!
It is imperative that you are able to write titles that pull. A more technical way of looking at it is that your book title and your chapter titles are a series of descriptors that clearly describe your Unique Selling Proposition (Your USP). Your USP is essentially that which separates you from your competition in the market place. It is what provides you your competitive advantage.
Let me assure you that the way you word something can mean the difference between success and failure or in our case, between being read and being ignored!
Here is an interesting study:
One marketer discovered the value of words by trying 4 different headlines, marketing a diet product, over a 3-month period. The sales material remained identical.
Only the headline was different in each case (In other words, only the words changed. Look at the huge difference in results.)
The headlines were as follows:
1. Breakthrough New Diet Product!
2. A New Diet Revolution!
3. How A Texas Housewife Lost 23.5 Pounds In 32 Days!
4. Dieting Secrets Of A Desperate Housewife!
The Big Question!!!!
Which one do you predict would outsell all the others and by a wide margin?
I pick # ____ and Why did you pick that one?
The Study Results
Every individual response was carefully tracked and recorded. The actual
documented results may surprise you. Total sales were 165 units over this testing period.
Let me repeat myself.
The ONLY thing that changed in this whole sales process was the headline. Everything else stayed exactly the same!
Here's a breakdown of the results each specific headline produced:
1. Breakthrough New Diet Product! 13 Sales (8% of total sales)
2. A New Diet Revolution! 8 Sales (5% of total sales)
3. How A Texas Housewife Lost 23.5 Pounds In 32 Days! 98 Sales (59% of total sales)
4. Dieting Secrets Of A Desperate Housewife! 46 Sales (28% of total sales)
Why do you think that number three out-pulled every other headline by a lot? I'll tell you. Number three alluded to a REAL STORY. A REAL person who lost REAL WEIGHT in a REAL AMOUNT OF TIME. It combined in a sense the UPP with the USP. The target market that this ad was aimed at could identify with that, and thus they bought the product.
What if the advertiser just crafted headline #1 and wouldn't change it? He would have lost 92% of his sales!!
What a lesson! You need to make sure that you craft a book title and chapter titles that will continually sell your readers on why they need to keep reading AND why they need to buy what you are selling!
BONUS : How To Make Your Writing Meaningful
Writing a book is a huge endeavor. It means someone has decided to dedicate a certain amount of time to putting words on paper. But so many people don't finish what they start. Maybe they've run out of ideas. Maybe they lost interest. Maybe they got hopelessly stuck. However I believe the core of all these issues lies in one thing: the writer doesn't know why he or she is writing in the first place.
All you have to do before you venture into the ever-tangled writing forest is leave a few breadcrumbs behind so you'll know how you got there and you'll know the way out! Lay them out by asking yourself the following questions about your work. Use them to challenge yourself, to get inspired, to put your writing front and center in your life. It's hard to get lost when you know exactly where you are.
What Do You Have to Say?
Here's another way to put it: what story are you telling? What is your point in writing this story or work of non-fiction? If you can't answer in a concise way, take some time to think about your message. It can be a huge one, such as a belief about how we all should live. It can be simple such as, "family is important". The big message in my novel was about the power of love in a family. I think I will always write about families because I believe the story of our families is the story of who we are in our hearts. I find the subject touching, challenging, inspiring.
As you think about your message, realize that ideally you shouldn't have to write it down. It should come from the core of your being and you understand it because it is a part of your natural thought process: it is who you are. Take another look at what you have written in the past because your message may be showing up already in your work and you haven't noticed it yet. This is the way August Wilson described the story that was at the core of his whole body of work: "I once wrote a short story called 'The Best Blues Singer in the World' and it went like this: 'The streets that Balboa walked were his own private ocean, and Balboa was drowning.' End of story. That says it all. Nothing else to say. I've been rewriting that same story over and over again. All my plays are rewriting that same story. I'm not sure what it means, other than life is hard."
Who Will Benefit from Your Words?
You will find the motivation to return to your desk each day when you think about what may happen when someone reads your work. Will there be women who can be healthier mothers because you are writing about battling post-partum depression? Will there be men who might feel closer to their fathers because you're writing the next Field of Dreams? When you think of your reader, it takes some of the pressure off of you because you realize the importance of getting the message to him or her. You think less of how you're coming across.
Are You Writing in a Medium That Best Suits Your Message?
I used to write poetry. I loved it too, but somewhere along the line I felt the things I had to say became harder and harder to fit into the confines of verse. I moved over to prose and never went back. I wrote for magazines and experimented with essays before settling into novel writing. August Wilson had written poetry and was working on a novel, but his talents glowed when he wrote for the stage. If you're having trouble completing a project, consider whether you are writing in a medium that is right for you and your message. Don't be afraid of experimenting with other forms. You can always go back to what you were doing before if it doesn't work out.
Step Down from the Soap Box
Writing is already powerful. The fact that people are reading what you write means they are already interested, maybe even absorbed, by what you have to say. You don't have to get up on a soap box and belabor your points to get them across. A simple story can speak volumes about the big picture if you let it. Mr. Wilson once told The Paris Review, "I think my plays offer (white Americans) a different way to look at black Americans. For instance, in 'Fences' they see a garbageman, a person they don't really look at, although they see a garbageman every day. By looking at Troy's life, white people find out that the content of this black garbageman's life is affected by the same things - love, honor, beauty, betrayal, duty. Recognizing that these things are as much part of his life as theirs can affect how they think about and deal with black people in their lives." Get it? Small story, big picture.
One Last Note
I know I'm waving the "big theme" flag here, but what I really want for you is for you to feel the passion of what you're writing. You may be passionate about a big message or you may be passionate about the simple question of "what happens next?" in your story (and you really want to know the answer!) Just connect with that passion and go with it because to me, this is how books get finished--when someone really cares enough to want to get to the end.
© 2005 Sophfronia Scott
Writing a book is a huge endeavor. It means someone has decided to dedicate a certain amount of time to putting words on paper. But so many people don't finish what they start. Maybe they've run out of ideas. Maybe they lost interest. Maybe they got hopelessly stuck. However I believe the core of all these issues lies in one thing: the writer doesn't know why he or she is writing in the first place.
All you have to do before you venture into the ever-tangled writing forest is leave a few breadcrumbs behind so you'll know how you got there and you'll know the way out! Lay them out by asking yourself the following questions about your work. Use them to challenge yourself, to get inspired, to put your writing front and center in your life. It's hard to get lost when you know exactly where you are.
What Do You Have to Say?
Here's another way to put it: what story are you telling? What is your point in writing this story or work of non-fiction? If you can't answer in a concise way, take some time to think about your message. It can be a huge one, such as a belief about how we all should live. It can be simple such as, "family is important". The big message in my novel was about the power of love in a family. I think I will always write about families because I believe the story of our families is the story of who we are in our hearts. I find the subject touching, challenging, inspiring.
As you think about your message, realize that ideally you shouldn't have to write it down. It should come from the core of your being and you understand it because it is a part of your natural thought process: it is who you are. Take another look at what you have written in the past because your message may be showing up already in your work and you haven't noticed it yet. This is the way August Wilson described the story that was at the core of his whole body of work: "I once wrote a short story called 'The Best Blues Singer in the World' and it went like this: 'The streets that Balboa walked were his own private ocean, and Balboa was drowning.' End of story. That says it all. Nothing else to say. I've been rewriting that same story over and over again. All my plays are rewriting that same story. I'm not sure what it means, other than life is hard."
Who Will Benefit from Your Words?
You will find the motivation to return to your desk each day when you think about what may happen when someone reads your work. Will there be women who can be healthier mothers because you are writing about battling post-partum depression? Will there be men who might feel closer to their fathers because you're writing the next Field of Dreams? When you think of your reader, it takes some of the pressure off of you because you realize the importance of getting the message to him or her. You think less of how you're coming across.
Are You Writing in a Medium That Best Suits Your Message?
I used to write poetry. I loved it too, but somewhere along the line I felt the things I had to say became harder and harder to fit into the confines of verse. I moved over to prose and never went back. I wrote for magazines and experimented with essays before settling into novel writing. August Wilson had written poetry and was working on a novel, but his talents glowed when he wrote for the stage. If you're having trouble completing a project, consider whether you are writing in a medium that is right for you and your message. Don't be afraid of experimenting with other forms. You can always go back to what you were doing before if it doesn't work out.
Step Down from the Soap Box
Writing is already powerful. The fact that people are reading what you write means they are already interested, maybe even absorbed, by what you have to say. You don't have to get up on a soap box and belabor your points to get them across. A simple story can speak volumes about the big picture if you let it. Mr. Wilson once told The Paris Review, "I think my plays offer (white Americans) a different way to look at black Americans. For instance, in 'Fences' they see a garbageman, a person they don't really look at, although they see a garbageman every day. By looking at Troy's life, white people find out that the content of this black garbageman's life is affected by the same things - love, honor, beauty, betrayal, duty. Recognizing that these things are as much part of his life as theirs can affect how they think about and deal with black people in their lives." Get it? Small story, big picture.
One Last Note
I know I'm waving the "big theme" flag here, but what I really want for you is for you to feel the passion of what you're writing. You may be passionate about a big message or you may be passionate about the simple question of "what happens next?" in your story (and you really want to know the answer!) Just connect with that passion and go with it because to me, this is how books get finished--when someone really cares enough to want to get to the end.
© 2005 Sophfronia Scott
