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Home | Featured Articles | How to Get, Choose, and Use a Killer . . .
 





How to Get, Choose, and Use a Killer Endorsement
By Susan Kendrick and Graham Van Dixhorn
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No question about it
, great endorsements will give your book a huge advantage.  People are drawn to anything in quotation marks.  On the front and back cover of your book, endorsements are one of the first things to which readers, reviewers, and others instantly gravitate.  They want to see not only what's being said about the book, but more importantly, who's saying it.

The Three P's
A good rule for choosing among the endorsements you may already have—or approaching someone for an endorsement—is the Three P's: Person, Position, and Place. Choose a person who is a household name or, given your target audience, a household name in that market—an expert, bestselling author, etc. If the person is not immediately recognizable, then choose someone in a position of authority—the CEO, President, Founder, Partner, Director, etc.  If place will be the main attraction, choose someone who represents a well-known company, organization, or association.  Again, your target audience—who they know and what will make the biggest impact on them—is key.

Would you help me?
Here's a great example of going out and getting just the right endorsement for a book.

Stairwell to Heaven, by Earl Johnson and released in September 2005, is the first book written by a direct survivor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center on 9/11.  He needed endorsements for the book but wasn't sure how to get them.

We worked with Earl to create a series of endorsements that that spoke to the compelling benefits of the book and perfectly complimented the other front and back cover text we developed for him—including the title and subtitle.  The person we were gearing up to approach was the Former Fire Commissioner of New York City, the fire commissioner at the time of 9/11.

This was a tricky endorsement to get.  Earl developed a friendly relationship with this gentleman's “gatekeeper” and asked about the feasibility of sending of copy of the manuscript to the former commissioner and getting an endorsement from him. (A gatekeeper is a personal assistant, office manager, secretary, or agent.)

His assistant said, “Fine, but he's such a busy man.  Is there any way that you could present him with some ideas?”  Perfect!  We were ready.  That's exactly what Earl did and the results are on the front cover of this book, now generating quick sales and national media attention.

Susan Kendrick and Graham Van Dixhorn are partners at Write To Your Market, Inc. They specialize in branding, copywriting, and coaching for authors, speakers, and experts. They create bestselling book titles and subtitles, back-cover sales copy, speaker one sheets, and business names and taglines. Their clients have won major book awards and received national TV coverage. To learn more, visit www.WriteToYourMarket.com. To read more of Susan's articles, visit www.BookCoverCoaching.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

     

 




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