Emotion sells

There is one charity I support more than any others, and that happens to be the ASPCA. OK, sure I have others that I give to as well. The Salvation Army, Alzheimer's Research, just to name a few. By far I give the most to the ASPCA. Personally I believe in what they do for animals, and I have also researched them and have found that 75% of money donated goes to their mission and the other 25% goes to operations.  People always wonder how that can be possible when they have commercials and other things that cost lots of money.  The simple fact is a lot of that is returned to the ASPCA as donations. In return the donating company gets to take a tax write-off for the cost of the donated service.  The point being is that I feel strongly in what these organizations are doing that I am willing to donate to help them.

Just for information sake I donate all proceeds of the sale on my book So You Want To Be A Nursing Assistant to Alzheimer's Research. I also donate 80% of the sales from my other books, Men: The Handbook, Politics 101, and 72-Hour Bag. To the ASPCA, Salvation Army, and Red Cross.

So what does that have to do with today's topic.  Simply put there is one basic principle in marketing and that is "Emotions Sell Product."  If you watch much TV you have probably seen advertisements for Christian Children's Fund, UNICEF, and the ASPCA.  All these advertisements incorporate the same elements. Usually this includes slow melancholy music, pictures of children or animals in cages, and a celebrity spokes person. It finalizes up with a usual your donation is just __ cents a day.  I personally have to change the channel when these commercials come on because they pull at my heart strings.  These charities know this and that is why they design their commercials that way.  If they can reach your emotional core they can usually get you to part with a little bit of money.  By breaking it down into as small an amount as possible they increase the chance that you will pick up the phone and make a donation.  After all someone will say 60 cents is not a lot of cash, but 18 dollars a month is a big step.

As an author the same rule still applies. If you can get your readers emotionally invested in your characters then you can keep them turning pages till the end of the book. However it is harder to get that emotional investment in just a marketing blurb.  For authors a marketing blurb is the first thing your customers read after looking at the cover.  It is usually about a paragraph or two long and contains a brief synopsis of what your book is about.  For an author this is the first and often last chance you have at convincing your prospective reader to open his wallet.  If you can put in your blurb enough to get your reader emotionally connected to it they will hit that buy button like a mouse going for cheese.  If you can't build that emotional connection then your reader will pass your book by to find one that does.  The problem is emotionally connecting with a reader is hard to do in one or two brief paragraphs.

Inside your book it may take you two or three chapters to get that emotional connection with your readers. I have read a number of books that try to throw it at you in the first chapter and while it is not impossible to do it does tend to seem unrealistic to me as a reader.  To truly build that emotional connection that makes a character real takes time.  If you can't build it and get the reader emotionally invested then you are going to lose that reader.  This probably one thing that writers find the most difficult to do.  Quality characters take a lot of effort and time to develop.

But the payoff in the end is worth the hours and the effort you put into it.  What help build that emotional connection is not just one thing but often a number of things.  If a character is perfect then readers get bored quickly. Characters that are flawed or have issues are easier for people to become emotionally connected with. This is probably because readers can relate with characters that remind them of themselves.  Characters that have struggles are more easy to relate to than a character that doesn't have any struggles.

In the end the author that can create a story that gets the reader emotionally invested will sell more.  No matter what genre you write emotion sells books.  As a side note if you wish to contribute to the ASPCA please click the picture above.