Author! How you attract great readers; your unique voice

Love is everything: you, me, everyone

Author: “Where on earth did my book disappear to?”

As authors we need to sell our work. Buyers have almost unlimited choice these days. Your books can disappear, lost among the countless other books published every year. I too have experienced that awful feeling:  you invest a big chunk of your life writing, and hardly anyone is interested. A bit soul-destroying, isn’t it?

How to find the needle in the haystack

If your books aren’t selling very well, you need to find out two things:

1) why people are not buying, and

2) what you can do about it.

Number 1: as you know, there can be very many different reasons why your book’s not selling. That would be a long and complicated post in itself, delving into the whole complex business of creating, marketing and selling your books.

Number 2: however, I’d like to share a few thoughts about what you can do to attract more readers:

The all-important “like-ability” factor

So, how to attract those much-needed readers? Let’s focus on an essential element; something important that you can, and must do: make people like you and like what you say. So, how do you do that? As an author, you need to convince them that you’re a nice person, and that you’ve something useful to say.

How do they come to the conclusion that you’re a nice person? Simple: write nice stuff. Nice stuff? Yeah, beautiful, loving, inspiring, motivational stuff, that displays your best values and beliefs. Your readers need to warm to you, attracted by your human values, such as love and compassion. The author’s attitude of caring, kindness and concern for people will attract the reader.

Author: Your unique “like-ability”

The author’s voice, the unique way you write, must attract the reader. It must be authentic, springing from a good heart. It is very difficult to pretend to be caring, when on the inside we are quite different. The ‘real you’ will come through in your writing, and the reader will pick up on it. This positive relationship you build with your readers is vital. They become your “clan” and look forward to your next book.

Author: Your caring is crucial

If readers feel the author doesn’t really care about them, they turn off immediately. Our caring for our readers must be genuine; part of a generous love and care for all people. If not, we could be perceived as putting on an act – just to sell books.

Why strive for such altruistic love? Simply because we are all part of our incredible human family. As they say, “A stranger is simply a brother/sister I haven’t met yet.” I really believe that; and I’m sure you do as well.

We are all in this together. That’s the root of our caring – we are all family.

And we authors have much to give

Gerry McCann – the Merry Monk

@themerry_monk