Lesson 39

Writing Class 101
 
Lesson 39
Sales Pitch
 
Good day to all. Last week we talked about editing, so hopefully your book is done. You have it published and on the market. Now you have to advertise. You need to place ads in as many places as possible, hopefully for free. You will also have to probably place your book on pay display ads. In order to do this you need to make up blurbs, short sentences to explain your book.

This becomes harder than writing the book in the first place. You have to pitch the story, announce to the audience where your book is available to buy. You want people to be interested just by a glance, because that is all the time that someone will give you. They need to be short, but chuck full of punches. First, a left hook; thrilling, dramatic, and dynamic. Then, a right cross; spine tingling, jolting, mysterious. Uppercut; intriguing, devastating, compelling, and heart pounding. Now for the knockout; explosive, murder, mayhem, or electrifying.
There are so many synonyms that can be used depending on what is in your book. Make a list, and use them all. Not all in one ad, but 3 to 4 in each ad. Switch them around, and change them up as you continue. It’s not just place one ad, send it out, and hope for the best. You will never know what someone is looking for.
When making up ads, post daily or weekly on your free sites. Paid advertising; post monthly or bimonthly when you can afford it. Remember, paid ads will send to roughly 50,000 phones or emails for as little as twenty dollars a month, and if you get anyone to buy, or even open the ad, you’re lucky. That is if you believe that they will. They said they did, so it must be true, right?
I say it is worse than a pyramid letter. They have always said, “Out of 100 envelopes, only 7 to 13 percent will open the envelope, and three percent out of that seven or thirteen percent might join and continue the pyramid scheme to make you rich." Yes, my friend, I was conned, and broke, and tried. Out of the 300 envelopes that I sent, I had three returned; two with wrong addresses, and one torn in half and re-mailed back to me. So where was my seven percent or three percent of that? Nowhere.
As stated before, out of 850,000 emails sent where they saw my cover along with my blurb, tens of thousands opened the email. Thousands opened the Amazon ad and read the first chapter, but none of those people wanted to spend the cost of a fancy latte for a book. They were looking for a free read, or a book for ninety-nine cents.
It has to be a continuous thing to advertise in order to get your book noticed by as many faces as possible. If you keep repeating the same ad over and over, people will be turned away and may not even look at you. Making it new and fresh every week may invite them in to see what you are posting next. It’s like those gardening tip books where they give you little bits and pieces to get you to buy the real book. Put a sentence from the book in your ad that is dynamic. A few weeks later, a different line.
WHAT THE HECK WAS THAT? Rick said. Find out what the wild boys discover after seeing a spaceship crash in the woods. Buy your copy, TODAY    ///    I CAN’T SHAKE HIM! HE IS COMING IN TOO FAST! An exciting space adventure that you must read. Buy now on Amazon and Kindle Select, NOW.
Whatever you come up with, make sure to rinse and repeat, and repeat, and repeat. Have fun writing, and we will be back with more fun next week.
Happy writing from rickkurtisbooks.com