Hey,

I’ve been unusually pensive because a particular phrase has been rattling around in my head all week.

Art is a container for feelings.

Like all my favorite pithy remarks, this was an aside, an offhand remark. I had to pause the video and go for a metaphorical walk in the forest.

This phrase might mean nothing to you but let me tell you what it means to me. And then I’ll tell you what it means for how you should talk to readers.

Because bestselling authors do it better.

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Contain Your Feelings

Art is a container for feelings and if you don't know that and accept that and corral that phenomenon, it will affect how you market your book.

How well you market it.

Let's park that possibly contentious claim for a moment and rewind. I want to build a bridge made of art-feelings first, one which I hope will lead us there.

And beyond, in fact, to the solution. One which helps us without compromising the core bits of us, which make that all that art creation possible in the first place.

Art Is What Now?

It was easier back in the days. Only two guys made art… so art was whatever they made.

Then lots of people started making art, attracted by the money and perks, or perhaps pushed into it by ambitious parents. Output increased to the point where art gobblers were paralyzed by choice – until the critics took over.

No one is quite sure when the first critic appeared; some say they were always amongst us, biding their time. The onset of a profession that was even more glamorous and lucrative than art led to an explosion in critics, which barely abated even after they were banned from mating.

Pretty soon the only way to get noticed as a critic was to say mean and outrageous things about all this beautiful art, these feelings-containers.

Book critics, were fiercest of all, possessing a staggering array of weapons such as sangfroid, insouciance, and schadenfreude.

Authors responded, fighting feelings with feelings. Launching their book babies into the world, they took to social media en masse, sharing all the feelings they felt when writing their book, when first conceiving of the central conceit, when finally releasing it into the wilds.

Their collective hope was to coat their newborn books in the armor of feelings and protect their prose from the mean things people say.

But they forgot that readers don’t care. Fans might, but new readers don't – sorry, that's the blunt truth.

Readers want to know how your book is going to make them feel.

Bestsellers Do It Better

A recurring theme in this here newsletter is breaking down some of the things that bestsellers do better. Particularly the things that everyone else can – and should – start doing right away.

Most people can’t start spending $100s a day on Amazon Ads or Facebook Ads.

And not everyone should anyway because most people simply aren’t in a position to profit from an approach like that yet. And you can’t skip ahead to that step.

But learning how to talk to readers more effectively is one thing that everyone can – and should – start doing right away.

In short, when you talk to readers about your book, tell them how it will make them feel. Tell them in your ad text, your tagline, your blurb, and your newsletters.

And then show them in your ad images and newsletter headers and book covers and website images.

I know that your feelings about your book are important to you, and I totally understand the impulse to share those feelings with readers.

It’s also important for me to say that there’s no judgment here because I made this mistake for years – it’s the most natural mistake to make.

But what I suggest is that when you are talking to new readers specifically, you should talk to them in a different way.

Don’t waste your time telling them how it felt to write your book.

Tell them how they will feel when they read it.

Fans care about your feelings. As do friends and family. So I’d suggest keeping the essays on the making of a book, or the emotional journey you went on, to the appropriate place.

Want specifics? For me, that’s the acknowledgements section of a book, an interview, or perhaps a post-launch newsletter.

If someone’s already a fan, they’ll lap that up.

If they aren’t, they won’t care. And you just wasted an opportunity of attention where a piece of sales copy would have converted much better. Because that’s what sales copy does. It converts.

That’s what good sales copy does, and something that focuses on you and your feelings, rather than those of the reader, doesn’t qualify.

I can gush with the best of them – trust me. But I keep that for those who care.

The currency of the internet is attention. Spend yours wisely.

If I get five seconds of a new reader’s attention, I’m not fumbling in my pocket for the Oscars speech.

This is up to you – as with everything – but I recommend thinking about whether the audience for your words is already converted to the World of You… or not.

When writing sales copy for your book – whether it’s a tweet, ad, newsletter, social post, or blurb – think about the audience.

Think about how much attention you will get from that audience. (Are they existing fans?) Then write in a way that captures that attention.

Tell them what it will make them feel. Show them.

Bestselling authors are generally brilliant at this, and I recommend looking at the biggest names in your genre – self-published and traditionally published. Look at the way they describe their books in both shorter and longer pieces of sales copy – look at the focus on how the reader will feel, rather than their own hopes and feelings.

People engage with art because they want to feel something. It’s not enough to give them what they want.

You must convince them they will hit that high when cracking open your books.

That's all for this week. I had planned a tutorial video on working with stock images for this Friday but some final(?) construction work had the studio closed off for most of the week.

Hoping to get it recorded for next Friday. Until then,

Dave

P.S. Music this week is Harry Belafonte live on the Ed Sullivan show back in 1953 with Matilda.