Saturday's Links to Writing & Marketing Blog Posts

5 STEPS TO WRITING A KILLER ELEVATOR PITCH FOR YOUR BOOK

By: Jennie Nash

You may think that elevator pitches are only for high-tech startups, job hunters, or Hollywood screenwriters, but being able to succinctly summarize your book in a very short space is a skill that every writer must master.

The elevator pitch is a powerful marketing tool that you can put to use when enticing readers, reaching out to potential marketing partners, and when you have a brief audience with an agent or editor. If you have written a strong elevator pitch, you will find that it’s much easier to answer when people ask, “So what’s your book about?”

Here are five simple steps to help you develop a killer pitch. Each includes three examples that build upon each step, so you can see how a pitch is crafted from beginning to end.

Step 1: What’s your book about?

Write down what your book is about in no more than 50 words. Don’t try to be clever or witty, just write down the facts or the bare bones.

• If it’s fiction or memoir, try to capture the plot, what happens, what the story is.
• If it’s nonfiction (business, self-help, inspiration, how-to), try to capture what the reader will learn and what your main point is.

Examples:

• Fiction: It’s a story about a woman who becomes part of the first father–daughter pair in the Senate, except she’s on one side and he’s on the other, and they don’t agree on anything.
• Memoir: It’s the story of how I spent four years searching for my mother’s murderer when law enforcement officials gave up.
• Self-Help: It’s a book about what to do when you have to let go of a dream that didn’t come true — like having a baby, closing a business, or walking away from a marriage.

Step 2: What’s the context?

. . .

Read the full article HERE!

~*~

If you missed my writing & marketing tweets and retweets yesterday, here they are again:

• How To Write A Killer Hook | Crime Fiction Writer Sue Coletta http://ow.ly/NUPfA
• [Breakfast with the Muse] 4 Compelling Ways to Write Emotion - She Writes http://ow.ly/NUPqX
• Dear Diary: Using a journal to brainstorm your fiction ~ Laurel's Leaves http://ow.ly/NUWJB
• How to Write in Deep POV + get inside the mind of your character | She's Novel http://ow.ly/NUQa7
• 8 Blunders to Edit Out of Your Writing | James Royce Patterson - @thePenleak http://ow.ly/NUXCm
• Character 101: Building Complex, Interesting, Memorable Characters | So You Think You Can Write http://ow.ly/NUXWK
• Pros And Cons Of Being An Indie Author | The Creative Penn http://ow.ly/NUYjk
• Email marketing that works 7 essential MailChimp tips and tricks http://ow.ly/NUYuE
• Free Sites to Promote Your eBook | GalleyCat http://ow.ly/NUYXZ
• The Cadence Group |  The Right Way to Price Your Book http://ow.ly/NUZMt
• 4 Book Marketing Goals You Can Achieve with Price Promotions http://ow.ly/NV5ip
• How a Blog Launched a Movement: The Vani Hari Story Social Media Examiner http://ow.ly/NV6lg
• Renowned Author Calls Out Randi Harper's Amazon Trolling | The Passive Voice | http://ow.ly/NV76E
• “In Absentia” Used As An Adjective http://ow.ly/NV9Vx  Daily Writing Tips #writetip
• Art of Commerce Series | Jane Friedman http://ow.ly/NVabW Building a digital presence, serendipity, querying...
• Seriously Write: What’s a Writer to Do? by Melinda Viergever Inman http://ow.ly/NVasX
• Let's Talk About Dialogue http://ow.ly/NVaCQ "...dialogue offers me the best chance to RECONNECT with the story."

Happy running and writing, Kathy