Attention, Authors: Three Ways to Get More Raving Readers
I recently had a conversation with a dating blogger who’s assembling the best of her blogs into a book, and she’s targeting women who like Sex and the City. I love that specificity because it says so much about those women: they like fashion, are into female friendships, are urban, drink socially, and are sexually active or want to be. The reference to that tv show unlocks an entire profile of likes and dislikes where the author and reader will probably line up, and she’ll want to reference them early the book and often to establish a foundation of trust with the readers.
There are many ways to create a relationship of trust with your readers, whether you’re writing a book, blog series, or social media content. One effective way to build that trust is to establish a foundation of things you have in common, the same way you would if you met in real life. Think about it for a second. When you first meet a new person, what do you tend to talk about? Probably where you’re from, what you do, your children or fur-children, and your hobbies or interests. You decide whether to keep talking or to keep up with each other in the future depending on how many of the right things lined up from that initial conversation.
You probably do the same thing without even thinking about it when you pick up a book and flip through it or visit an author’s bio before purchasing a book. When readers are deciding whether a book is worth their time and attention, they’re looking to get a sense that the author understands and can speak to them — that they’re the target audience for whom the book is relevant.
It’s frustrating to get into a book and realize it wasn’t written for you. It’s written for someone with more specialized knowledge, different goals, different politics, different lifestyle, etc. To prevent a reader from feeling that way, it’s important to give potential readers the cues they need to see that your book is or isn’t for them, and you can do that quickly by establishing your foundation of common ground. You connect with your reader by putting your concerns, interests, and values out loud and in front so they’re unmistakable.
I borrow this concept from the business world. Shaun Buck writes about the customer retention formula he and Dan Kennedy created; “Shared Interest + Shared Space + Shared Concern = Customer Retention,” in a Forbes article that really jumped out at me. I started thinking about how writers could capitalize on the same principles to keep readers following them after reading the book. You’re retaining readers for the duration of the book and hopefully keeping them engaged to learn more from you and work with you in different ways.
The shared space is then already accomplished with your book being the location where author and reader come together, so I adapt the equation by changing out values for space. I speak more about why values in the next section. For quick reference, here’s what my formula looks like:
COMMON VALUES + COMMON INTERESTS + COMMON CONCERNS = ATTENTION/RETENTION
Creating a reader avatar based on these pillars and writing a book that speaks to them is an excellent way to attract your best readers and keep them engaged with you after reading the book.
Common Values
A value is a principle that you adhere to. If you’re an entrepreneur or work for a company, there are probably company or brand values. Your personal ones may differ slightly with those, and you might even create some values just for yourself as an author, as well as your values around your topic. Here’s a list of values from James Clear so you can be thinking about what words do and don’t count as values.
For example, with the client I cited earlier, her values around dating are: vulnerability, intimacy, and self-acceptance. A reader that’s not ready to be vulnerable, isn’t ready for intimacy, and thinks she’s unlovable if she’s not perfect will see that book and run the other direction. And, the reader who feels those things and is ready to do something about them will see the same book and be pulled toward it. The reader who already agrees and needs a little help will also be drawn to read the book. So, you’re creating a marketing tool that brings in the right people and helps the wrong people self-select out — at least for now.
When a reader sees that you both share the same values, this allows the reader to relax and trust your authority. They agree to come on the journey with you because you’ve both agreed about the direction you’re going to take.
Common Interests
The common interests you have with the reader build a bridge of common ground outside the topic, itself. These can either be things about yourself that you’re passionate about or things the reader is passionate about. If they both match up, even better, but they don’t always have to. To discover your common interests, think about the topics that usually come up if you’re in a room with someone and waiting for another person to arrive to start a meeting. These might be things people know to ask you about because you’re passionate or topics that come up because you share the interest.
For the dating book topic, common interests might be: diet and fitness, shoes, handbags, specialty cocktails, nightclubs, and trunk shows. The writer shares some of those with her target readers, and for other topics in that list, she knows the readers are interested, so she keeps up with those topics to stay relevant.
Sharing your interests allows the reader to feel like they know you, which increases trust. You also gain the reader’s trust by showing that you’re familiar with the same interests she has, which makes her more willing to consider that you might also understand her unique problem and the best way she can solve it.
Common Concerns
The concerns you mention in your book might be specific to you, your audience, or ideally, to both you and your audience. A concern can be anything from parking to global warming. Have you noticed how quickly a conversation can end when someone brings us a concern that’s not shared? If you hate it when people double park, and then a friend arrives to coffee complaining about a double-parker, that works. On the other hand, if you rode your bike and could care less about parking woes, that conversation is probably going nowhere. I’m concerned about homeless dogs and cats, and that attracts some people and repels others, which is fine.
The genius of Sex and the City and my client for using it as a reference point is that almost every episode centers around a dating and relationships concern that Carrie shares with the viewing audience as well as her posse of besties.
Trust is almost immediately built when people who share the same concerns first come together. The trick is to make it hold throughout a relationship, which for your book means creating a through line of similar concerns, or if it’s a big enough concern, adding it to your book’s overall platform.
To put it all together, look for places in your writing that feel impersonal or flat. Maybe that spot could use a dose of emotion via an interest, value, or concern to hold the reader’s attention. Also, if you’re reading a section of your book and thinking, “why would anyone care?” that’s an opportunity to connect the idea to a value, interest, or concern to build in the care. These are the details that make a reader want to positively review your book, share it with others, and stay in touch with you to find out what’s next.
When you start thinking about it, you’re going to see your values, interests, and concerns in your copywriting and the language you use with your clients, as well as in the marketing and conversations you have with others you do business with. They’ll pop up in the media and arts you enjoy, and you’ll get the hang of how to pepper them throughout your book to build and sustain common ground with your reader.
When you run into a great example of shared values, interests, or concerns in your writing or in something you read, share it here.
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