This email is disorganised and badly planned

This email is, I guess, the third in a set of missives about marketing. (Here’s the first one, here’s the second.) If I were more thoughtful and more organised, today’s email would probably have appeared first not third – and, arguably, it’s the most important of the three so far.

Those of you with time machines can zoom around reorganising space-time to rectify my shortcomings. The rest of you can simply consider this one deep truth:

Marketing costs are a tax payable on bad product design.

Bad books won’t sell profitably under any circumstances. Good books still need marketing, but the power of that marketing will be vastly greater, longer lasting, and more profitable.

Obvious, right? And of course, to write a good book, you need a decent plot, you need great characters, you need all the yadda-yadda blah-blah that I talk about in these emails.

But it’s not enough to write a good book. You need to write a saleable good book. (And, by the way, I know I often sound like a novelist talking only to novelists, but I do also write non-fiction and much of what I say – including every word of this email – applies to non-fiction too.)

Readers are going to encounter your work in a bookshop – which may have upwards of 50,000 titles – or on Amazon, which has millions of titles. As readers, that diversity as great. As authors, we find that competition terrifying.

Let’s assume that your book is good. You’ve ticked the boxes for plot and character and prose and all that. But why the hooting heck should anyone buy your book? If you’re writing spy fiction, why should anyone buy your books over John Le Carre’s? If you’re writing psych thrillers, why should anyone buy your work, not Gillian Flynn or Patricia Highsmith? In most markets, premium products sell at a premium price. In Booksland, the best books ever written sell at the same price as yours, in the same locations, and in unlimited quantities.

So why should anyone buy your book? Why, why, why, why?

Ah, solving that question
Brings the priest and the doctor
In their long coats
Running over the fields.

If you don’t have a priest / doctor / field combo to consult, then here’s a suggestion:

Readers will engage with your book, if something about it piques their interest.

Please note, I’m not saying “buy” – I’m saying “engage with”. I’m thinking about a reader picking up a book from a bookstore table and turning it over in their hands and reading the blurb and sticking their thumb into the book to find a chunk of text to read. On Amazon, I’m talking about a reader engaging with the ‘look Inside’ feature or scrolling down to read reader reviews. Obviously, not all of those readers will convert to buyers, but you’re in the game.

Please also note, I’m saying “piques interest”. That’s all. I’m not saying “a potential reader has considered every aspect of your book in detail, consulted newspaper reviews, Amazon reviews, inspected Goodreads, and compared a sample of your prose against Le Carre / Highsmith / Flynn / Nabokov.”

You don’t need all that. You just need to pique the reader’s interest and secure some engagement. Achieve those things, and it’s then down to the deeper, broader qualities of your book to achieve the sale.

And what is it to pique interest – in any context, not just books?

It’s to give somebody a snippet of information which sparks interest in learning more.

For example, friends of ours recently went camping and invited us over for a Saturday supper. To pique my interest, they said, “It’s a campsite with its own climbing wall.” Eight words, that instantly engaged me – because I love climbing – and immediately made me want to learn more.

Or:

“A lawn mower robot means you never have to mow again.” If you have a sizeable lawn, as I do, those words instantly make you want to enquire further.

Or:

“The kids’ summer fete: £4 for 10 games.”

You instantly want to know what kind of games are on offer, when this thing is taking place, how certain is it that there will be thunderstorms, whether there will be a hog roast, how the hog in question feels about this, and much else.

In not one of these cases does the snippet of information represent an even remotely complete picture of the thing described. A proper description of the fete needs to talk about barbecues and whack-the-rat and gym displays and archery and pony rides. A proper description of a lawn mower robot needs to explain about wire tangles and set-up hassles and how tiny sticks on the lawn will make the robot yap like a sad puppy until it runs out of battery.

A complete description doesn’t matter. It’s actually a negative at this very first introductory stage. Your description simply needs to deliver a snippet of information which sparks interest in learning more. That’s the whole deal.

That’s why great elevator pitches can be – should be – ridiculously short:

Campsite, with climbing wall.

Robot lawn mower.

Orphan goes to wizard school.

If you have any length to your pitch, you’re saying too much. You haven’t yet found the single point that nudges your potential reader into engagement.

Equally, if your elevator pitch is artistic, you’re missing the point. There’s nothing remotely artistic about the pitches I’ve just given you. They’re just words shoved together. The point is to highlight the thing of interest fast and clearly. That’s all.

I often hear pitches like, “A queen who came to conquer – but learned to yield.” And, ye gods, that’s all summer dress and no boots. Forget the dress. I want the boots.

Suppose, instead, you’d said, “An alternative history novel: Mary Queen of Scots invades England at the head of a 50,000 strong army.” Wouldn’t you instantly want to learn more? (Or rather, if that kind of history is vaguely your thing, wouldn’t you want to learn more? You can’t sell a comb to a bald man.) Being specific is good. Being clear is good. Being blunt is good. Being artistic and unclear is utterly useless.

And here’s another key point: the elevator pitch is for you. It’s so you know what you’re selling.

Nowhere, ever, does JK Rowling’s marketing material say, “Orphan goes to wizard school.” Nowhere, ever, does the marketing blurb for my Fiona Griffiths novels say, “A detective who used to think she was dead.”

If you think an elevator pitch is for the reader, you’re thinking about it backwards. It’s for you. You need to know your elevator pitch so you can check your product design is right. It’s also so you can check that every single itty-bitty part of the universe surrounding your product – your book – harmonises with that basic offer.

Next week, I’ll explain further what I mean. I’ll take my own Fiona novels and show you how I try to make sure that my elevator pitch exists always and everywhere in the Fiona universe – from the text of the books to the design of the covers, and much more beyond.

But the deployment of the pitch is secondary to the thing itself. What’s your pitch? What makes someone want to learn more?

Don’t be long-winded. Don’t describe the whole thing. Don’t be artistic. Don’t be clever.

Think of your pitch as something you scribble on a Post-It note at the top of your screen. An eight-word memo to yourself. “What’s going to pique the reader’s interest? This is.”

There are fifty thousand competitors in a good-sized bookshop. Ten million or so competitors on Amazon. And none of that has to matter, because you’ve got your pitch. Campsite + climbing wall. Robot + lawn. Orphan + wizard school. Something to arrest the roving eye.

Til soon.

Harry