INSIDER INSIGHT!
"Blurbology": How to Get Endorsements
If you don’t have impressive professional credentials or expertise in your nonfiction subject, getting endorsements can lend credibility to you and your work. The best endorsements come from very well-known experts and prominent figures with broad appeal (for a parenting book someone like baby and child care expert Dr. Terry Brazleton, for example) whose opinion is highly respected.
Remember that the names must be very high profile — practically household words, even if only in your field. For example, in business books, those names might include Tom Peters, Peter Drucker, Ken Blanchard, and Rosabeth Moss Kanter. In spirituality books, Deepak Chopra, Marianne Williamson, Donald Neale Walsh, Carolyn Myss, and Jack Canfield are among the highest profile authors. Less prominent writers, thinkers, or public figures are not so impressive, but can be effective in a particular niche market or with a smaller publisher. How do you go about getting these kinds of very high-level endorsements?
1. Ask.
Believe or not, one way is simply to ask. There are many stories of aspiring authors who simply wrote to famous experts or writers or well-known public figures and asked them to read their manuscripts. These writers didn’t have a connection of any kind, but they made themselves and their projects so compelling or intriguing that the famous person couldn’t resist.
2. Use Your Connections.
Far more common is what might be called “exploiting your six degrees of separation.” That means looking at your network of friends, acquaintances, current or former teachers, business or professional associates, other writers, and anyone else who might have a connection to someone who could endorse your work. Maybe it’s not a direct connection, but they know somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody. The more people you tell about your work and the more people you ask for help, the more likely you’re going to find those connections that could lead to an excellent endorsement, as well as to all kinds of people who can help you — agents, editors, publicists, and so on. If you don’t ask, you’ll never know whether you could find your way to the perfect endorser.
3. Be Fearless.
Don’t be afraid to write letters of inquiry to people you don’t know at all. Be sure to use the name of the contact who brought you to them, and use the same techniques that create an irresistible query letter. You may be turned down, but that’s just part of the process. Don’t take the rejection personally.
4. Don't Give Up.
Use the responses to figure out new strategies for getting endorsements — notice the phrases or approaches that seem to elicit the most positive responses, and refine them so they are even better. If you really believe in your work but are realistic about the missing pieces in your author resume, you can see that getting endorsements may be the key to helping you break into the publishing game.
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