What To Do with Strange Experiences

By Terry Whalin @terrywhalin

Throughout my life, I’ve had a number of strange personal experiences. It’s part of our lives that we have these different encounters and experiences. As a writer, what do you do with these stuations?

Some people write a book manuscript. Others use the material as background for their novel and other storytelling methods. While I love books and work as an acquisitions editor for a New York publisher, this usage for your stories and experiences has limitations. Thousands of new books enter the marketplace every day. I’ve read estimates between 4,500 and 11,000 new books enter our world every day (depending on your source and including the self-published books). These numbers involve a lot of competition for readers for your books.

In this article, I want to suggest a different starting place for your experiences. Instead of a book, I encourage you to use your personal experiences as storytelling material for magazine articles. When you write a magazine article, it’s easy to reach 100,000 to a million readers (depending on the circulation of the publication). Magazine editors tell writers what they are looking to publish in their writer’s guidelines. Often you can find these guidelines on their website or in a market guide. 

Each publication has a specific readership or audience. As you craft your article or your query (pitch), you have to be focused on the audience. When I worked as the Association Editor at Decision with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, we were printing 1.8 million copies of each issue. This circulation has dropped through the years but is still over 400,000 (see this link).

Some of the greatest readership for my writing has come through my personal experience stories in Decision. Decades ago we taught our oldest child about death through the passing of our second child. I called this article Schooled In Death. As I went through this difficult personal experience in a journal, I captured little pieces of dialogue and feelings. Then later as I wrote my story, I used these snippets in my magazine storytelling. 

It’s a pattern I suggest you use for your personal experiences--write down the feelings and dialogue then use them in a magazine article. When you write a magazine article, you learn some specific skills which will build into your writing life. You learn how to create an interesting title and how to begin your article and pull the reader into your story. Magazine articles have a limited word count (500 to 1,200 words--again depending on the publication. As you write your article, you learn how to have a beginning, middle and a strong ending which leads the reader to a single point called a takeaway. 

Where do you find these magazines? First, which ones do you read on a regular basis? I would begin there because you are familiar with their readership and target audience. Almost every magazine will take a well-crafted personal experience story for their publication. If you sell “first rights” to the magazine (noted at the top of your first page of your submission), then these rights return to you once the magazine publishes your article.

I’m suggesting a simpe strategy with your personal experience stories. Write a series of these types of articles which likely can be interconnected. With some editorial adjustments, each article can be the start of the chapter in a book. If you string together 15 to 20 of these articles, then you have a book manuscript. I have a lot more detail about this type of strategy in my free webinar Get More Mileage from Your Content.

As writers, we have an abundance of opportunity. I encourage you to use the Christian Writers’ Market Guide to look for more publications and opportunties to publish your writing. From going to writer’s conferences, many writers are focused on getting their book published and never consider teh magazine world.  You can do both--write for publications and write books. Your magazine articles can tell people about your latest book in your one-sentence bio at the end of the article. Your persistence and consistency as a writer will pay off.

What steps are you going to take to write and publish your strange experiences? Let me know in the comments and I look foward to hearing about it. 

Tweetable:

As a writer, what do you do with your strange personal experiences? This prolific author and editor encourages an unexpected series of actions.  (ClickToTweet)

New Podcasts:

In these articles, I’ve encouraged you to use PodMatch or some similar tool to book and record podcasts. Last week one more podcast recording launched:

David Newman (@dnewman) and I spoke about Real Deal Publishing on The Selling Show Podcast. Listen at: https://bit.ly/4q7yDDl 

Throughout my many years in publishing, I’ve co-authored over a dozen books and reviewed thousands of submissions (no exaggeration). As a part of the process of working with these authors, I speak with them about their dreams and plans. Many of these authors have  unrealistic expectations about what will happen with their published book. Many aspects of the details of publishing are outside of anything an author can control. I wrote 10 PUBLISHING MYTHS to give authors practical help. You can get decades of insights in 10 PUBLISHING MYTHS for only $10, free shipping and over $200 of bonuses. 

Subscribe to Terry’s Newsletter:

During the last year, once a week I’ve been sending a short free newsletter. Just follow this link to subscribe. When you are added to the newsletter, you will receive a FREE 87-page Ebook which is packed with insights for every writer.

Get these articles on your email: 

Since 2004, I have blogged about The Writing Life over 1,800 entries and one of the top 27 content writers. With this simple form, each week you can get my new articles, encouragement and insights at: https://t.co/W6uU64u6aA

Re-Use Your Interviews

By Terry Whalin @terrywhalin

You may wonder if anyone listens to the radio. Just because you don’t commute or listen to the radio or podcasts, that does not mean large numbers of other people do listen to the radio. If you have any doubts, just read this recent article from the Pew Research Center. Radio can be a powerful medium to tell others about your book or area of expertise.

Recently one of my Morgan James authors was on In the Market with Janet Parshall speaking for an hour about the topic of her book. This radio program has a large audience and is simultaneously broadcast on 700 radio stations. I was thrilled for my author to have such broad exposure for her book. While that one-time broadcast was powerful, what if you could use this interview over and over? 

I called my author and recommended she get the actual audio from the interview, then store it on her own website (so it never disappears or changes). With this additional effort, she can tell others about this interview over and over through social media, her newsletter and other places. Because the interview was live radio, it will sound fresh in a month or a year and attract new readers to her topic and her book. In this article, I’m encouraging you to use such a strategy to continually gain new listeners about your book.  

Let’s take a step back and ask, is the media interviewing you? If so, I applaud your efforts. How do you get these interviews? Do you pitch yourself to producers or did you hire a publicist? Either option is a good one to get connected to these media experts who need fresh material for their radio programs. You can serve these journalists and also reach new people about your book. In these articles, I’ve written about radio interviews before (follow this link). I encourage you to get as much mileage and use out of these intereviews as possible.

I’m conviced every author or would-be author needs to learn about the power of radio. Use this link to learn how Alex Carroll has built a huge following, book sales and business on the radio. 

When it comes to working with the media, don’t be a one and done interview. Instead take some extra actions to get more mileage from your efforts. There are many radio programs and stations looking for you to interview. They simply haven’t gotten the right pitch from you or a publicist. 

Each of us have to be continually pitching our important topic and expertise to get these interviews in the first place, then use them to their fullest potential. Each of us are making choices and need to make the best choice then use our resources with wisdom and consist action. 

What actions are you taking to get media interviews on the radio or podcasts? How are you re-using your resource to get the greatest exposure and mileage from it? Let me know in the comments below. 

My Articles in Other Places. 

In these articles, I often encourage you to publish your book on other blogs and other places. Here’s some of my articles which have been published recently:

Six Reasons to Write Reviews. On Writers on the Move, I give a the details and encourage every writer to be writing reviews. 

Jumpstart Your Magazine Writing. How can you magazine writing and deliver what the editor needs? I give the details in this article. 

Why Are You The Author?   At Almost an author, I write about some aspect of book proposal creation. This article addresses a question every proposal should answer because editors and agents want to know this information.

Tweetable:

Does the media interview you once and you are done? Or do you re-use your interviews? Get ideas to expand the reach of your interviews from this prolific editor and writer. (ClickToTweet)

Much of the publishing process is outside of the writer’s control. 10 Publishing Myths helps writers have a realistic perspective and take action. Get 10 Publishing Myths for only $10 +FREE shipping + over $200 of free bonuses.

Steal This Book Marketing Idea

Imitation is one of the greatest forms of flattery. I've been observing different book marketing ideas for years and never seen this idea.  I wanted to write about it and give you the details so you can use it (or improve it and use a variation) with launch your book.

Evan Carmichael is a brilliant entrepreneur and marketer. His first book is called Your One Word. It includes an interesting subtitle which stresses a benefit to the reader: “The Powerful Secret to Creating a Business and Life That Matter.” Notice several actions with this bookmark:

First, he asks, “Did you get your free bonuses?” The answer is “no” and you keep reading. Every author needs to offer some sort of bonus that ties to your book. Then Carmichael explains how to get the bonuses: “Email a picture of you and the book to oneword@evancarmichael.com and we'll send them to you!” He has set up a special email address for receiving these photos.

Many people are using a smartphone so taking a self-photo with the book is easy then emailing it to this address. In this process, Carmichael captures the email addresses of his readers—which is something every author should be doing—and adding to his email list in this process. I'm unsure what he is going to be doing with the photos, but I guess I will learn because I emailed my photo.

Second, he includes a little Amazon logo with five stars (clearly suggesting readers to give him a five star review). Then he asks for the review saying, “If you're enjoying this book it would mean a lot to me if you could review it on Amazon so others can discover it too!” Evan is following a key principle: if you don't ask, you don't get. Also with a color, he emphasized the words “a lot.” Followed with gratitude of “Thank you!” and his signature.

The overall effect is to touch his readers, get an email address and encourage them to write a book review. This little bookmark certainly caught my attention and I suspect will be effective for other readers. Carmichael's book released on December 6, 2016 and as of this writing has 76 Amazon reviews (way more than your typical nonfiction book). It looks like this strategy is effective.


One other key if you use this idea: write an excellent book. Carmichael has a well-crafted book with solid insights, stories and great interior design (use of bold and sub-heads for example). The foundation of every book is exceptional writing. The book is a hardcover business book with an attractive cover design—and published by Tarcher (an imprint of Penguin Random House). The publisher tells me that lots of energy has been poured into the creation of this book with excellent endorsements and broad bookstore distribution. Your One Word is a well-made book.

In my years in publishing, I've never seen such a bookmark but believe many others can replicate this idea with success. It's why I wanted to show it to you.

What do you think about this bookmark and idea? Is it something you could use? Tell me in the comment section.

Tweetable:

Read the details of a brilliant book marketing idea.  (ClickToTweet)
 

t  

What Is Your Postcard Strategy?

Editor’s Note: I’ve written about postcards and the importance of them for every author. I’m bringing you this excerpt to help you learn more about postcard marketing. There is much greater detail in the Postcard Marketing Handbook.

By Lina Penalosa

Allow me to save you a lot of heartache and disappointment by saying right now, don’t bother with postcard marketing if you only plan to do a single-step campaign. In fact, don’t bother with marketing at all.

I can’t tell you how many business professionals I’ve encountered who decide postcards, sales letters, TV commercials, coupons, advertisements or anything else you can think of doesn’t work in their market because they didn’t get the results they wanted after a single-step campaign.

And what’s worse is they draw these false conclusions AFTER repeated warnings from their consultants that:

• Single-step marketing rarely, if ever, works,
• You have to build relationships with your prospects before they’ll trust you enough to buy from you, and
• It often takes an average of 7 to 11 touches before a prospect can even REMEMBER seeing your message, much less do something about it

Now, I’m not saying you shouldn’t expect to get decent results on your first postcard mailing. If you follow ALL of the advice in this book, you will. But I am saying if you’re thinking, “All I have to do to sell 1,000 widgets is send out A postcard,” you might want to rethink your marketing strategy.

Why? Because the more mailings you send a prospect and the more mediums you use to communicate your message, the more likely you are to enjoy a successful campaign.

Remember, POSTCARDS ARE NOT MIRACLE WORKERS. If all it took was one mailing to make all the people you desire buy or do what you wanted, there wouldn’t be much need for regular, consistent marketing much less multi-media marketing would there?

So, if you haven’t already, sit down and plan out your marketing strategy. Figure out how many different ways you can communicate with your audience and how many times you can afford to touch them over a given period of time.

Only then should you proceed with designing, writing and sending your postcard mailing.

Let me also say that if you are on a strict budget, postcards are an excellent low-cost option for multi-part mailings because of the low cost per thousand.

Reduce Your Production Time

How? By tweaking the message you already have then re-mailing. Yes, it’s important to touch your prospects multiple times and in multiple ways but that doesn’t mean you have to create a new message from scratch every single time.

On the contrary, once you find a message that works (through testing which we’ll discuss later), you’ll want to use it over and over again.

Now perhaps each piece will have a different headline, different proof points or feature a different benefit, but the USP and overall message should remain largely the same. After all, it is a series mailing and each piece should be related to the previous and subsequent ones.

Feature A Low-Cost Or No-Cost Offer

Second only to the single-mailing mistake, the worst mistake I see marketers make is trying to use a little-bitty postcard to move mountains. What do I mean? Simply that it’s not reasonable to expect a 3.5” x 5” or even a 6” x 9” postcard to sell expensive products and services. There just isn’t enough room on a postcard to persuade someone to fork over thousands or even hundreds of dollars for your product or service. That’s what long sales letters, teleseminars and other marketing mediums are used for.

Instead, your strategy should be to graduate your prospect to the next step in your sales funnel by getting them to call in, write in or fax in their request for a free or low-cost book, special report, teleseminar, CD or some other item with a high perceived value. Of course you can sell low-cost items quite effectively with postcards, but if that’s not your market, you’ll want to use the approach described above. Remember, the trick is to get your prospects in the habit of saying “yes” to you by making it easy, not by requiring an act of congress to pass a budget amendment. Got it?

About the Author: Lina Penalosa is a marketing consultant, expert copywriter and professional speaker. Her specialties include the art of the soft-sell, teaching others to write results-generating copy with integrity and purpose, and marketing to women.

Excerpted from the Postcard Marketing Handbook, How to Generate Leads, Sales, and Web Site Traffic With the Most Affordable Direct Mail Strategy on the Planet, used with permission.

Do You Have A Long-term Strategy?

When it comes to hitting a goal or a target, there is a saying, "If you aim at nothing, you will be sure to hit it."

Do you have dreams about where you want to take your writing in the future? Many of us have dreams and ambitions about publishing but do you have a strategy which you are working to achieve that dream? Where do you find experienced advice in this area?

For many years, I've known Annie Jennings who leads the national PR firm, Annie Jennings PR. Several years ago, we met at one of the American Society of Journalists and Authors conferences in New York City. Annie has a wealth of information for writers and publishers about reaching the marketplace. As USA Weekend magazine journalist Peggy Noonan says, " Annie Jennings does a wonderful job of grasping the essence of the story and finding exactly the right people."

What a wonderful endorsement but how do you get on Annie's radar as an expert? Tomorrow or Thursday, January 24th, you can take the first step in this process. It doesn't matter if you have never been published or you are a seasoned and much published writer. Take advantage of this free resource.

I'm hosting a 90-minute teleseminar with Annie Jennings about how to become a million dollar expert. Not even close to becoming a million dollar expert? No problem because you will learn the strategy, mindset and the marketing from Annie.

This informative session is absolutely free. Use this link to sign up and ask some questions. Also in appreciation for filling out the form, Annie Jennings PR will send you a personal copy of her blockbuster new CD called "Create The Optimal PR Strategy."

And if you can't make tomorrow night's session, it will be recorded. Every registrant will receive the information about how to get the replay (which you can download to your iPod or listen to any time on your computer). But to receive this information, you have to register. I look forward to this valuable session with Annie Jennings.