Patrice Rhoades-Baum Archives - Barbara McNichol Editorial Services

Change Testimonials for Nonfiction Book Websites?

January 2, 2017 by Barbara McNichol Leave a Comment

by Patrice Rhoades-Baum

Have you heard this advice: “Never edit or change your testimonials.” Not true! You SHOULD edit them so they’re professional and add value using a light touch. Just be careful not to change the meaning.

Use this checklist:

PROOF – It’s vital to fix typos and punctuation issues. This helps to ensure your website and other marketing tools are polished and professional.
SHORTEN – Brief testimonials get to the point and are easy to read. Trim long testimonials to 3-5 sentences. Yes, this means sacrificing content. But that’s better than loooong testimonials, which cause readers’ eyes to glaze over.
REWORK (IF IT’S CONFUSING)– If a testimonial contains good content but is confusing or poorly written, consider rewording key sentences. Be careful not to change the meaning or the person’s intent. Then email the revised testimonial to your client for approval.
ORGANIZE – I like to place testimonials with the most impact at the top of the website’s “Testimonials” page. When you organize testimonials, alternate those that address similar challenges.
INCLUDE FULL NAME & MORE – Make every testimonial work hard for you! Include the person’s full name, title, organization, and books written.
ADD SEO KEYWORDS – When you edit client testimonials, sprinkle in organic SEO keywords. For example, if your name is Jane Doe and you’re a business coach, you can do this:
- Replace this statement: “Jane guided me to…”
- With this statement: “As my business coach, Jane Doe guided me to…”
MAKE A BOLD STATEMENT – Your website visitors (your prospects) don’t read every word on your website. They skim. That’s why I select one sentence in every testimonial and make it bold.

Always take time to edit or change testimonials you use in your book marketing. This adds professionalism to your marketing efforts – and adds value for your book.

Please share your opinion on this topic in Comments below.

This article is from my colleague Patrice Rhoades-Baum. As a marketing consultant and branding expert, she guides solopreneurs – professional speakers, corporate consultants, and business coaches – to create a clear brand, strategic website, and polished one-sheet brochure. Patrice specializes in branding for small businesses and writing strategic, hardworking one sheet and website copy.

A Writing Tip that’s Not a Halloween Joke

October 10, 2016 by Barbara McNichol Leave a Comment

by Patrice Rhoades-Baum

Have you heard the expression “murder your darlings”? It’s not a Halloween joke. It’s a century-old, highly respected writing tip.

Who said it?

According to Forrest Wickman’s research, Arthur Quiller-Couch offered this insightful advice in his widely reprinted 1913-1914 Cambridge lectures “On the Art of Writing”:

“Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it – whole-heartedly – and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings.”

What does it mean?

Sometimes while writing, we create a sentence or paragraph that is particularly energetic. It flows! It sparkles! It may be brilliant!

But if that sentence or paragraph does not support your message, you need to kill it. You need to whip out your red pen or hit the delete key.

It breaks your heart, but it must be done.

I believe every word, every sentence must support the message. “Murder your darlings” reminds us to be objective when writing and editing our content.

We are servants of the message we seek to communicate. We cannot fall in love with a passage that does not serve our message.

I’ve been writing professionally for 30+ years, and I know it’s tough to “murder your darlings.” My advice? Take a breath. Buck up. Do it.

The more you “murder your darlings,” the easier it becomes. Implement this writing tip to make your message clear. Your writing improves and everyone wins – except that “darling.”

Patrice Rhoades-Baum is a marketing consultant and branding expert. She guides solopreneurs – professional speakers, corporate consultants, and business coaches – to create a clear brand, strategic website, and polished one sheet brochure. Patrice has a 35-year marketing background: 25 years in high-tech corporate marketing + 10 years as a business owner. She specializes in branding for small businesses and writing strategic, hardworking one-sheet and website copy. She can be reached at www.patricerhoadesbaum.com

Share an example of when you “killed a darling” and didn’t have to stand trial for murder.

One Space or Two Between Sentences?

March 1, 2014 by Barbara McNichol Leave a Comment

This post comes from Patrice Rhoades-Baum and was recently published on her blog. I get this question often, too. Patrice wrote about it first. 🙂

A client recently asked this question: “I have heard that we should only space once between sentences. Is that only for emails, or is it for written letters too? Where did this come from?”

The Days of Typewriting

The idea of putting two spaces after a period dates from the early days of the manual typewriter.

Back in the day, the standard typestyle was Courier, which is a fixed-letter-space font. You had to hit the space bar twice after the period, so there would be some visual space between sentences.

This became the norm.

Those of us who learned “typewriting” versus “keyboarding” were trained with the two-spaces-after-the-period philosophy. (Yes, I just revealed my age, or at least my generation!)

Meanwhile, book and magazine publishers have always dealt in the world of typography. The publishing community has always used only one space after a period. As typewriters were replaced by computers with desktop publishing software, only one space after periods became the norm (and rightly so).

The bottom line:
Always use only one space after a period – in your letters, emails, brochures, speaker one-sheets, website copy, and more.

A quick tip:
In MicroSoft Word, you can use the Search/Replace function to search for two spaces and replace all with one space. It only takes a second and helps you provide clean and accurate copy to your designer.

Marketing consultant and branding expert Patrice Rhoades-Baum guides solopreneurs such as professional speakers, corporate consultants, and business coaches to clarify their brand. Go to www.brandingandwebsites.com for more information.

Make Your Book One-Sheet Work Hard for You

October 8, 2011 by Barbara McNichol Leave a Comment

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.