Winning ecstatic sales

I’ve heard that there are three types of sales:

1)      Soft sales: where the person might pay for the product after they’ve seen it and know that it meets their needs.

2)      Hard sales: where the person will pay up front for the product because their fairly certain in advance that it’s probably alright and worth the risk.

3)      Ecstatic sales: where the person loves everything you’ve ever done and wants everything you can sale them and is clamoring for more.

I figure that there is nothing that exemplifies this ideal of the “ecstatic sale” more than with writing. Whether you call it brand name recognition or the “Harry Potter” phenomenon, it’s an elusive ideal worthy of all the effort it takes to reach that lofty goal.

I recently went to a writing convention where one of the authors that spoke talked about how you can’t think of being an author as a hobby. He joked that when people say to him that they want to take off for the summer and write a book he’d respond with, “Yeah, I was thinking of taking the summer off to become a neural surgeon.” The point being, that when you create a book that you want others to read, it’s got to be professionally done. If the author bypasses traditionally publishing because it’s too much work to go through all of the editing and revision stages, then the book is really just good for one reader alone, and that’s the author.

On the flip side of this however, of the approximately 1% of people that get accepted by a publisher and get a book published, the average income is about $3,000. This means that even for those that are published it’s not likely that being an author is more than just a hobby. Perhaps this is the fault of the publishing industry. Perhaps the reason for so many inadequate books that get published is because of an inadequate model.

I’ve realized that before I want to do anymore marketing of my book, I still have to improve the writing inside – which means for me paying for copy editing. Having come from a science/engineering background where my communication skills and knowledge of the English language is still quite limited, in order to give my book a more professional feel I have to pay someone that knows what they’re doing. Even as I learn more spelling and grammar rules, I imagine I’ll still need someone who can professionally look through my work and make sure I didn’t mess up. My brain is just too amazingly good at filling in details that it wants to see as opposed to what is actually there.

I think the path to getting ecstatic sales also includes holding back on other promotional methods until the quality of the product does match the standard that you want to reach. Once a bad review is out there it will limit the potential audience. On the other hand each critical review offers the potential for improvements that can be made to insure that people are ecstatic about what you have to offer.

Hopefully someday I’ll be able to make a career out of this, it’s certainly exciting enough that I can imagine enjoying creating entire universes and tour guides through them on a full time basis.  And hopefully I eventually learn how to better encourage others to share more of their ideas with me on how we can accomplish such lofty goals.

Life is in the details.

A good friend of mine and excellent photographer has taken the challenge to take at least one picture every day. She’s done it for a couple of years now and has talked about some days it’s a challenge. It’s interesting the new perspective one gets by changing the angle, distance, lighting, dwell, etc.

For me writing is like that. Looking at people, the way look, dress, and interact, trying to understand how each sees at the world. Also trying to understand what level of detail in my writing will trigger a vivid image and how much is overkill or not enough is an exciting challenge. I think the generic term of “write tight” is supposed to capture all of that. It’s interesting to me how that while it might sound like it means “write less” actually in many cases means “write more.”

“Write tight” conveys the information that the reader doesn’t understand why what they read is important. If it really isn’t important, it definitely should be chopped. If it is important it should be tied together well. Unfortunately, knowing the art and balance of all of this is very tricky. Each person reading my story comes to it with such a wide variety of backgrounds that tying it to something that’s important to them is sometimes hard to understand.

I think making it personal is the key. I don’t think this necessarily means write in first person. What I think this means is, “get to know people!” I think a lot of writers are introverts. This is probably because we tend to look at the world a little differently. We may be a bit weird that way. So having people look at us awkwardly does make it tough get out there. But now having embraced my own individuality, and trying not to be too overbearing (or perhaps” overwhelming” is more accurate) it is incredibly fun getting to know people.

I’m so excited about all of the new friends I get to make.

Falling in love with literature ...

Perhaps I'm as far from normal as one gets with respect to love of literature. It wasn't until I dove in head first and tried to understand everything about it that I gained my deep appreciation for writing. Perhaps it was because I never felt like I was any good at reading that I tended to stay away. I still read at a painfully slow rate, which becomes more frustrating as I discover so many more things that I would love to read.

I think that we're all scientists, adventurers, and explorers at heart. It’s so incredibly exciting finding new treasures that make your mind soar through the eternities or dive into the deepest abyss. It feels so strange to be finally waking up to the realization of all that is out there. It’s like I’m running around saying, “Why didn’t anyone tell me amazing this all is?” and you’re all like, “What? You didn’t know?”

As I was contemplating writing this blog, I came across this: Through the Mists of Time: Falling in love with literature. And I realize that now that I understand a little better and love so much more every aspect of sharing these amazing adventures with others that I have a much better appreciation for all of the mechanics of writing and how magical a word, a sentence, or a phrase can be.

But I don’t think that we need to look to schools to do a better job of teaching this, I think each of us as we discover the passion within ourselves can help pass that torch along. Hopefully I’m getting better at sharing this love and excitement with my kids.

Worries over laziness...

It seems to me that the current publishing trend in the US is that readers want immediate excitement, and easy read. With all of the things that books are competing against that require so much less of the person, many in the book industry think that books need to follow that path to compete. I disagree. One of the things that I like most about books is that it does require something from me; I get to use my mind. I don’t think I’m alone there. I also think that those who haven’t found this love of “discovery through effort” would miss out tremendously if we switch the focus of reading to pander to them as opposed to encouraging them.

That being said, I’m still inherently lazy. I still have to fight with myself to do more, to be more. When I make choices in the evening between reading something incredible and watching something mediocre at best on TV, I still far too frequently choose TV. It’s just so much easier to sit down and not think.

So to create a book that tells a story in a way that not only competes with the TV, for example, but changes minds, helps the readers to discover more about themselves then they themselves knew was there is amazingly challenging. I often think that I took on too much by trying to write a series that tries to capture it all. I know that I can’t expect any reader to make the extra effort in reading, just because I was too lazy to write better. I may still have inadvertently done just that, not because I didn’t want to put in the extra effort, but rather just because I didn’t know any better. I could only write to the best of my ability at the time, but I’d love to learn how to do it even better.

So if in reading my book, you think of ideas of what I could do better, or parts that get bogged down or slow please to worry about sharing that with me. I’m anxious to improve.