Will it Sell?
How to position your book

by Catherine MacCoun

Writing books is, on the whole, an inefficient way of making money. Most non-fiction authors earn a lot more doing something else. When they profit hugely from a book, it’s usually because the book is a marketing device for other products or services offered by its author: speeches, seminars, consulting, newsletters, etc. An author who succeeds at this has carefully positioned the book—that is, identified its target readers and their needs—before writing a word of it. Its market position is pretty much identical to the position the author wishes to hold in his or her chosen field.
            Of course, there are many authors who write simply because there’s something they’re burning to say. They write the book first and then go looking for a publisher, assuming it’s up to publishers and booksellers to figure out how to sell the thing. This is an excellent strategy for those who like to collect rejection letters. Publisher’s don’t make an offer on a book unless they feel confident they can reach its intended audience. It’s up to the author to tell them who that audience is. For the writer who plans to self-publish, and must therefore bear all the marketing costs, positioning is even more critical. The only hope of reaching any audience at all is to know exactly who they are and where they are.
            Even if you’re one of those people who write for the sheer joy of writing itself, it pays to position a book before you start. Why? Because the writing itself will benefit. To publish a book is to enter into a relationship with its readers. The more readers can feel this sense of relationship, the better they like a book. Positioning is how you bring your readers into focus and identify what they want from you. A well-considered position statement gives you all sorts of clues about how to structure the book, and can even influence the writing style. It gives you a clear sense of purpose when you sit down to the page.
            So how do you go about it? Here are some exercises to get you started:
           

Exercise #1: The Browse

Visit a large chain bookstore and head for the section that stocks books similar to the one you want to write. Pretend you’ve just arrived from another planet. From the evidence on the shelves, what can you gather about the mentality of the earthlings who read this type of book? What topics seem to preoccupy them? What enticements to buy are most frequently offered? Note which books are given a place of prominence and which are stacked on the remainder table. Can you identify any differences between these two groups of books? 
            You might be dismayed to discover several titles that are very similar to the book you have in mind. Don’t let this daunt you. Publishers and booksellers are, on the whole, allergic to the unprecedented. They are reassured by books that are similar, but not identical, to books that have already succeeded. In a later exercise, you’ll figure out how to differentiate yourself from the competition. For now, don’t worry about it.
            Next head over to the section that offers books about writing and publishing, and browse it as a normal customer. Which books did you pull down from the shelves for further investigation? What was it that attracted you to them? Did you buy anything from this section? If so, what made you choose it?
           

Exercise #2: The Ideal Reader

The object of this one is to invent a fictional character—the Ideal Reader--who embodies all the characteristics of your target audience. You could approach this systematically by posing a series of demographic questions (age, gender, occupation, education, marital status, hobbies, favorite TV programs, etc.). Or you could put yourself in a daydreamy state of mind and see if a character emerges from your imagination. When you think you’ve found your Ideal Reader, picture that person sitting with you in the room where you write. Imagine telling your Ideal Reader about the book. How does he respond? What questions does she ask?
            If you’re hoping to write a commercial bestseller, you might find yourself resisting this exercise. You want to appeal to a very broad spectrum of the reading public. The Ideal Reader narrows it down. From a marketing perspective, this is desirable. “Universal appeal” is a very appealing notion, but how will your publicist go about reaching the universe? If you want to sell 10,000 copies, it’s cheaper and easier to capture a large share of a tightly defined-niche than a small share of a very broad market.

Exercise #3: The Sound Byte

Effective bookselling is largely a process of gross oversimplification.  When your proposal reaches an overworked editor, she will decide on the basis of the first page whether to read to the end of it. If the company decides to publish your book, your editor will have 2-3 minutes to convince the sales force to exert themselves on behalf of it.  Booksellers will decide on the basis of a few sentences of catalog copy whether to stock your book. Readers will decided based on a sprinkling of jacket copy whether or not to buy it. Your publicist will have 2-3 minutes—if he’s lucky—to convince producers and editors to bestow media attention. 
            In other words, everyone you have to rely on to advance this project is used to speaking in sound bytes. While it may never become your native tongue, your success in publishing depends on being able to translate your message into their dialect.
            The end product of this exercise will be a one-sentence answer to the question:  Why does your reader choose your book over every other book in its category?  But to arrive at such simplicity we’ll have to take a rather convoluted route.
            Let’s start by defining the reader benefit. If your book is based on or intended to promote whatever it is you do for a living, this should be pretty easy. Your reader is your typical client or customer. What problem, need or desire leads them to seek your services? What do you do to solve the problem or meet the need?
            Next ask yourself: how many books on the market are promising the same benefit. If the answer is “fewer than five,” you’ve got yourself a niche. Your benefit statement alone will serve as an effective sound byte.
            If you’re looking at a larger competitive field—well, here’s where the marketing of books starts to diverge from the marketing of services. When someone has a leaky sink, it doesn’t matter that their plumber offers basically the same benefits as other plumbers. Uniqueness is not a selling point when it comes to plumbing. The world can support a vast number of people who fix leaky sinks. The world cannot, however, support a vast number of books about sink repair. To survive, each must be perceptibly distinct from all the others.
            There are three ways to narrow the competitive field:

1. Narrow the benefit
2. Narrow the method of delivering it
3. Narrow the audience

            You will probably have trouble doing this if you conceive of your book as delivering exactly what you deliver as a professional—i.e. same benefit, same methods, same client profile. If, for example, you are an executive coach, you might offer your clients the broad benefit of “becoming a more effective manager.” You probably use a variety of methods to deliver this benefit, and offer it to managers in variety of occupations and industries. You might be used to thinking of this breadth of experience as one of your professional strengths. But from a book marketing standpoint, it makes you hard to distinguish from all the other executive coaches. To give your book a distinct identity, you will need to emphasize some aspect of what you know and do, and downplay others.
            So let’s consider how you might narrow the benefit of “becoming a more effective manager.” The term “manager” is quite broad. To get more specific, you could start by listing everything you can think of that managers manage: projects, people, time, resources, change, systems, processes, etc. You could further narrow these categories by inserting modifiers. Examples:

• Difficult people
• Scarce resources
• High profile projects
• Rapid change

The term “effective” is also pretty vague. You could narrow the benefit by getting specific about what “more effective” means. In other words, what are the desirable effects a manager might have?

• Reduced employee turnover
• More cordial customer relations
• Less chaotic work environment

            Another way to distinguish your book from others offering the same benefit is by specifying the method you use to achieve that benefit. For an executive coach, this might mean the application of a particular system, theory, or skill. Keep in mind, though, that a difference in method is only meaningful from a marketing standpoint if it carries some benefit for the reader. (Examples: cheaper, faster, easier, or more effective.)
            But suppose you want to offer a wide array of methods for achieving the very general benefit of “being a more effective manager”? It is still possible for such a book to find its niche by getting very specific about audience. This is how the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” books work. They just keep thinking of new kinds of souls (teenager, sports fan, junk bond trader) that need chicken soup. Souls that might need a general guide to effective management include:

• First line supervisors in manufacturing
• Managers in health maintenance organizations
• Managers under 30
• Technophobes who manage techies

            In other words, it is not necessary to narrow the benefit and the method and the audience. But your book will have a very hard time finding its niche unless you get specific about at least one of these factors.
            Once you’ve figured out what to narrow, summarize the result in a sentence that goes like this:

My book will help [audience] to [benefit] by [method].

Some examples:

My book will help female executives to become more successful by mastering the use of sports metaphors. [Audience and method defined, benefit left vague.]

My book will help readers to respond more spontaneously during job interviews by applying Second City improv techniques. [Audience left vague, benefit and method defined.]

My book will help managers under 30 to feel confident when supervising older subordinates.   [Audience and benefit defined, method left undefined.]

Now look at your benefit statement you just drafted and once again ask yourself: how many other books are offering the same thing? Fewer than five? Congratulations! You’ve got yourself a sound byte—and a market position.