5 Tips to Boost the Marketability of Your Manuscript

Introduction

In 2024, Ella Ritchie of Stellar Communications Houston hosted a bonus session for Judy Lane Boyer’s 6-week Survey Course: How to Write a Book. Ella suggested five tips to boost the marketability of a nonfiction manuscript, answered questions from attendees, and offered freebies.

Show notes:

Tip #1 Set the Foundation [12:18]

Tip #2 Deliver a Promise to the Reader [15:32]

Tip #3 Inspire Readers to Action [17:45]

Tip #4 Get Social Proof [19:50]

Tip #5 Do Market Research [21:35]

Overview of the 5 tips for a marketable book 

1. Set the Foundation
   Establish a strong foundation by clearly defining your book’s mission, goals, expertise, and target audience. This not only shapes your book but also aligns all the efforts of your team (ghostwriters, editors, marketers, etc.). A well-defined foundation helps everyone stay focused on the same vision.
2. Deliver a Promise to the Reader
   Craft a clear promise that tells readers what they will gain from your book. This could be knowledge, practical steps, or inspiration. Deliver on this promise by providing well-structured content, engaging elements like charts or summaries, and keeping your message consistent throughout the book.
3. Inspire Readers to Action
   Motivate readers to take action beyond the book by defining specific calls to action. This could involve joining an email list, accessing a course, or downloading tools. Use lead magnets (e.g., quizzes, free resources) to engage readers and lead them to additional steps after finishing the book.
4. Get Social Proof
   Enhance your book’s credibility with endorsements, forewords, and testimonials from respected individuals in your niche. These endorsements act as social proof, making your book stand out and giving it an added layer of authority. Display these endorsements prominently on the cover or in key sections.
5. Do Market Research
   Study successful books in your genre to understand current trends, such as cover designs, content presentation, and reader expectations. Analyzing bestsellers, speaking with beta readers, and reviewing similar titles can give you valuable insights to make your book more appealing to your target market.

Transcript of the webinar: 

Welcome, everybody! Tonight we will talk about five tips to boost your book’s marketability. 

I want to start out by introducing myself. My name is Ella Ritchie. As Judy said, I’m the founder of Stellar Communications Houston. People call us the missing piece in premium end-to-end nonfiction book publishing, marketing, and PR. That’s because there are five steps to the publishing process. We onboard people at all five steps, depending on where they are. And we fill in gaps where they’re needed. 

My expertise is in nonfiction. If there are people here who are working on fiction, these strategies apply to you too. 

Tip 1: Set the Foundation 

All right, let’s get started with the five tips. Tip one is to set the foundation of your book, which also sets the foundation of your marketing campaign. This is important for three reasons. It shapes your book. It appeals to your audience and aligns all your team’s efforts. You can create one document that explains your vision. 

You would want to consider your mission, goals, expertise, and target audiences. I’m going to use one of my clients as an example for all tips, just so you can see how it plays out for one marketing and PR campaign.

Here’s an example of his mission: His mission is to inspire high-performing service contractors in the home service industry to implement his pure motive service system. So, the whole point of his book, the whole mission, is summed up in this sentence. Getting your mission down to just one sentence helps tremendously in getting everyone on the same page for you.

Another sample is his goals. He wanted to sell books, build his email list, build credibility in his industry, get media exposure, and draw more clients. You might have different goals. There are many different reasons why you might be publishing your book.

His sample expertise: Joe Crisara is the author of ‘What Should We Do?’ and an expert in home service sales. If you change out those three lines, you can plug in your information and claim your niche.

Let’s look at his target audiences. He has three. His primary audience was home service business owners. He was targeting business owners with teams of people, so one sale could mean 20 books. His secondary audience was the actual readers themselves, the home service professionals. He also had additional audiences, such as suppliers in his industry, distributors, and retailers.

Tip 2: Deliver a Promise to the Reader

Tip two is to deliver a promise to the reader. This is so important. Think about your promise to the reader. What are they going to walk away with? How are they going to feel? What are they going to know? What are they going to receive? If you do this, it meets the needs of your readers better, sets your book apart in the industry, and changes lives. It helps make sure that lives are changed.

Here’s what you need to do in this step. First, define what your promise is, and then deliver on that promise. Here’s a sample promise from my client: High-performing home service pros will learn a proven system to win clients, double profit, and grow home service sales. He had proven stats on this, so his claims were very solid. 

Here’s an example of how he delivered on his promise: He took the time to develop charts and graphs for his book to explain his system better. We also created highlights throughout the book so readers would see the most important points. At the end of each chapter, he had a section called Bullseyes, a recap of learning.

In three different ways, he constantly drilled his system into his readers. He was so confident in his promise that he made it his subtitle, which is a pretty bold promise for his industry.

Tip 3: Inspire Your Readers to Action

Tip number three is to inspire your readers to action. This step is a lot of fun. Inspiring your readers to action is important because it helps capture their attention, helps you connect with them, and adds value to your book. 

Two steps here: define your call to action, and develop a lead magnet. A lead magnet is something you create that helps your readers take action outside of the book.

Here are some sample calls to action. My client wanted several things to happen: He wanted readers to join his email list, take a course he offered, download his app, and get training for their teams. This is what it looked like: We created pages at the front and back of his book and the back of each section, offering some freebie. There were fun quizzes, free sample courses, worksheets, and invitations to join his free community. Each page had a QR code to make it easy to entice readers to take action.

Tip 4: Get Social Proof

Tip number four is to get social proof. This builds your credibility, sets your book apart in the market, and allows you to leverage the audiences of the people who endorse your book. 

Here are two examples of social proof: a Foreword inside your book and endorsements on the cover and inside. My client had three top endorsements that he really cherished, including one from Jack Canfield, which he featured on the back cover. He also had someone from his industry, who is highly respected, write a Foreword. His book was covered in social proof.

Tip 5: Do Market Research

The last tip, tip five, is to do market research. This is something that many authors don’t think to do. When you do market research, you study success, you understand market trends, and you have a much better chance of standing out. 

There are some ways that you can do this. You can speak with beta readers and ask what they like about books in your genre. What do they see that’s lacking in books in your genre? What do they like about your own manuscript and not like about your manuscript? They are a great resource.

Comparable authors are great. Comparable titles to your book are also great. And bestsellers in your genre are a goldmine for you.

Here’s an example from my client. We went to the Amazon bestsellers. We did everything: beta readers, comp titles, comp authors, and we also looked at his bestsellers and his industry. One thing we noticed was that in this genre, there aren’t a lot of photos on the covers. It’s mostly just text. There’s a lot of red and orange.

We used that insight to shape our design, knowing what drew readers then—text covers with red and orange, some white. That shaped how we designed his book.

We also looked at reader reviews. We saw what people liked about these books and what people didn’t like. It’s very insightful to see why people say something negative about a book—super insightful. Market research can tell you a lot.

I want to make time for some Q&A, Judy, so I will open the floor now.