By Patrice Rhoades-Baum

On the surface, a book/author one-sheet appears simple. After all, it’s one page of sales copy that promotes your book. Toss in a graphic of the book cover, your bio, and photo, and you’re done, right? Wrong!

Your book/author one-sheet is a hardworking marketing and sales tool. As such, it must—

• help you meet your business objectives to promote and sell your book
• clearly state the top benefit message for your target audience
• be professional, both in content and design.

Transforming your one-sheet from a shallow list of information into a strategic tool requires putting on your marketing hat. Use the following 7 steps to guide you.

Take these 7 steps

1. Write down the business objectives for your one-sheet. What do you want this marketing tool to accomplish? Here are some example objectives:

• “Create a professional-quality one-sheet that makes me shine as a professional.”
• “Use as a talking guide (like a script) to support my sales calls and visits with buyers.”
• “Leave with (or mail to) prospective book buyers as a reference sheet, so they have all the information to make a purchase decision, contact me, and buy my book.”
• “Give to bookstore managers, so they have all info to promote book-signing events.”
• “Give to media reps, so they have all info when deciding to schedule an interview.”
• “Position myself as a subject-matter expert who is available for speaking opportunities.”

2. Write down a description of your target audience:

• Clarify their demographics, needs/wants, and challenges/frustrations.

3. Identify and write down the top benefit your book delivers to your target audience:

• The buyer must clearly understand how your book will help or educate someone.

4. Identify the target audience who will be using your one-sheet (e.g., owners/managers at local bookstores, buyers at national chain bookstores, buyers for library districts, media reps, etc.).

5. Clarify the call-to-action for your one-sheet recipients. What action do you want them to take?

6. Write professional copy for your one-sheet:

• Select and hire an experienced copywriter.
• If you decide to write the one-sheet copy yourself, then hire a marketing copywriter to edit and finalize the copy.
• Start with writing the copy first, then meet with your designer to give it a professional design.

7. Select and hire a professional designer with one-sheet experience:

• Book buyers are professionals who expect to see professional-quality materials – both in design and content.

 Write or gather the following content

1. Brief introductory paragraph introducing the book topic and delivering a strong benefit message for the target audience (be clear, concise, and compelling!)

2. Your brief bio, written specifically for this marketing tool

3. Snippets of 2 to 3 book reviews

4. Contact information

• Publishing company, contact name, and title
• Phone number
• Website address (you should have a landing page, at minimum)
• Email address that corresponds with website address (not gmail or yahoo)

5. Specific book information

• Retail price for hard cover, soft cover, e-book
• Bulk discounts, if available
• ISBN number
• Book description (example: Business)
• Page count

6. Include a bold, compelling call-to-action that encourages the buyer to purchase your book!

Graphic elements to create or gather

• High-resolution image of book cover
• Thumbnail images of other books you have written, if applicable
• Your logo, if you have one
• Your brand colors, if you have them
• Your professional photo

Don’t cut corners with your one-sheet.  Make it a hardworking marketing and sales tool that shows you off as a pro!

Patrice Rhoades-Baum specializes in branding and copywriting for websites and one-sheets. Backed by 30 years of strategic marketing communications, Patrice teams with authors, speakers, and consultants to clarify their brand, write copy for their websites and one-sheets, and facilitate their logo, website, and one-sheet design/development. Learn more at www.BrandingAndWebsites.com.