5 Questions that Lead to Great Book Marketing Copy by Casey Demchak, expert copywriter

I’ve written effective book marketing copy for nearly 200 hundred authors. All of these projects have had exactly one thing in common: I’ve interviewed every author and asked the same five questions before I wrote their book marketing messages.

Writing strong marketing messages for your book requires planning. But it doesn’t have to be complicated.

In my case, when I work with authors, I read their book and ask them five simple questions and supplement this with practical follow-up questions that spring from the answers they give.

However, the foundation of my author interviews is my five primary questions. If you’re writing your own book promotion copy, you can leverage this strategy by interviewing yourself.

Now, instead of writing your answers to my five questions, I recommend speaking your answers into an audio file.

Creating an audio file is less work than writing and it affords you the opportunity to relax, speak from the heart, and verbally free flow your thoughts.

Plus, you’ll find that when you speak your answers you’ll end up supplying yourself with much more information than if you write your answers.

YOUR 5 QUESTIONS

Below is an outline of the five questions you should answer during your self-interview before you write your book marketing copy.

Answering them fully, honestly, and completely will provide you with a tremendous set of notes from which you can write your book promotional materials.

#1 – Who is your target audience?

If you’ve written a business book, don’t just say “business people.” Go into detail about the specific person to whom you are directing your marketing copy.

Give this person a name, an identity, wants, desires, and dreams and direct your book marketing copy toward this specific person.

Go through this exercise no matter what your book’s genre is. You’ll find it’s much easier to write marketing copy that is detailed and focused when it’s directed to a specific reader avatar.

#2 – What is your book about?

Don’t overlook this step. Speak into your recorder about the subject of your book. Be detailed and speak from the heart.

You’ve spent a ton of time writing your book, but you probably haven’t spoken out loud about it. Don’t worry about giving a polished sales pitch for your book. Just be raw and honest and talk in depth about the subject of your book.

You may be surprised by what you say!

#3 – What will readers get out of your book?

This is the most important question you’ll answer in your self-interview. Talk at length about the benefits readers will draw from your book.

When I write book marketing copy, reader benefits are what I focus on the most and you should too.

Describe in detail what readers will gain, receive, discover, learn, get, develop, build, feel, think, etc. when they read your book.

Going through this exercise will give you a lot of great benefit-driven statements that can form the core of your book marketing copy.

#4 – Why are you passionate about your material?

You wrote your book for a reason, so explain why you wrote it by answering this question.
Let the passion for your book’s subject matter rise to the surface when you write your book marketing copy. Your promotional content will have much more depth, texture, and emotion.

If the passion for your work is evident in your marketing copy, you’re more likely to attract readers who are equally as passionate about your book’s subject matter.

#5 – Any final thoughts to add?

When I ask this question when I am interviewing authors, they usually pause and say something like, “No, I think I’ve covered everything. Oh but wait, there is just one more thing I’d like to add …”

This is when authors usually give me one final gold nugget that leads to a great headline or paragraph that I can add to their website sales page or back cover copy.

Ask yourself this question and allow yourself to free-flow any final thoughts about your book. You’ll be surprised by the raw, spontaneous, and engaging thoughts that emerge.

If you’re thorough and speak from the heart when you answer these five questions, you’ll find that you have an abundance of solid raw material from which you can shape persuasive marketing copy that sells more books.

Until next week, take action and make things happen!

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