Continuing my series of book promotion ideas leading up to the launch of my new novel, If Love is a Lie, Finding and Losing Love Online, here’s today’s topic: What I Can Do For You.

If Love is a Lie, my newest novel is about the woes of internet dating, and as an experienced internet dater, I can tell you one of my turn offs are guys who start out by writing “I don’t know what to say about myself.” Or “I hate talking about myself.”  Gee, don’t those sound like charming dinner companions?

There’s a fine line between these guys and that other charming of men, those who’d say “I’m the best guy you’ll ever meet and you’d be lucky to go out with me.”  But as a writer who’s forced to also be her own promoter, you have to find a way to tell your readership how great your books are, while at the same time not sounding like you think you’re Hemingway incarnated.

I mean, I know I’m a wonderful storyteller.  I know I can write like nobody’s business.  But no one wants to hear how great I am or even how great I think my books are, they want to hear what my books will do for them.

As a promoter, I’m a salesman, and every salesman will tell you, you sell an item based on what it can do for the buyer, not what the buyer can do for the seller.

So what can my book do for the reader, you ask???

Good question. Here’s some answers to that question:

• Be enthralled in an excellent story.
• Be educated on the horrors of scam artists on dating sites.
• Learn my true life story as the first half of the book is based on my own personal experiences. (This means I’m giving them permission to be nosey and who doesn’t like that!)
• Experience a happy ending. (This is pretty big on my list for book experiences. It’s all about the ending, baby!)

What can my book do for you? This is an important question to ask yourself about your own book. How will my book make the reader happy or give them the experience they desire? When you figure that out and also an effective way to say it, you’re much closer to making sales then just yelling from the top of your lungs on Facebook “I’m Great!!! Buy my Book!!”

So what about your book? How do you sell to your audience given the parameters of what it can do for them? I’d love to hear from you!!

-Jennifer