The Writing Heart of a Baboon

By Peter Nevland - Aug 25 , 2009

The heart of a baboon holds the key to your successful writing career. Deep within its DNA lies the secret to open doors with publishers, increased press coverage, and excited fans waiting to buy your products while a satisfied smile spreads across your lips.

That’s not really true.

But I am going to tell you a little secret that should guide you in all your emails, phone calls, conversations, etc.—I have no idea what it has to do with baboons.

If you tremble at the thought of how to start, what to include, and how to end your communication with very important people, it’s because you’ve let what you should say, rather than what they want to hear, consume you. Plus, the American education system teaches us to write proper sentences instead of how to make those sentences interesting. I can’t change the education system with one article, but I can help you make your communication provocative and interesting. So here goes…

Open with the information that they care about most, their immediate felt need. Put yourself inside their mind. Don’t tell them how long you’ve been writing, how you want to change the world, or the way writing makes your heart soar. They’ve got deadlines to meet, rent to pay, books to sell.

If it’s a publisher or a bookstore, how many books can you sell? How can you prove that? If you have no answer to that question, plenty of articles on this website lay out plans for increasing your platform and potential fan base. Go read them and do what they say before attempting to convince a publisher to play the lottery with your unknown book.

If it’s a newspaper or other media source, how will it help them sell more papers, fulfill their necessary quota of interesting articles, or satisfy their own personal journalistic desires? If it’s your fan base, what draws them to you in the first place? How does the book you want them to buy, or the show you want them to attend, satisfy that desire? Start off your preparation by answering those kinds of questions, and you’ll find that your difficulty starting will diminish significantly.

Now write the most powerful image you can think of. Don’t try to hype them or make an unrealistic claim. Just tell them what they want to know vividly and succinctly, like this…

• For a publisher: “31,452 baboon-hungry subscribers sign on every week to read my column, The Baboon Chronicles.”
• For a press article: “Baboons have joined the fight against global warming”
• For your fan base: “Baboon Press unveils my new hardcover book, Baboons in the Arctic, at Barnes & Nobles next month.”

Once you’ve established a solid image that answers the issues they care about, you can proceed to tell them about all the characteristics of your product that will be useful to them in doing what they want to do with your product. What’s The Zebra Chronicles about and what kind of people read it? How big of an effect on global warming have baboons contributed, and where can I find the studies to back it up? What do I have to do to get Baboons in the Arctic, and how much does it cost? Don’t tell them more than two or three characteristics. That’s too much information to digest at once. You only want to tantalize their appetite and let their imagination make you bigger than you are.

Ok, you’ve answered their felt needs and gotten them to believe you’re for real. It’s now time to tell them what you care about. Of course, it needs to confirm their growing suspicion that you have the depth of character needed to expand your fan base, accomplish a reduction in global warming, or provide the most interesting book about Baboons they’ve ever read. What do you care about that makes their dreams come alive? How can you identify with their heart’s desires? Say that, and they’ll be wishing you would tell them what to do next.

Tell them what to do next. Provide a link to find more info on your website. Give them your phone number. Tell them what day to go buy Baboons in the Arctic. This is your call to action. Make it as easy as possible for them to understand.

Finally, close with a powerful image of what will happen when they do what you ask them to. This and the first image you create will resonate most powerfully in their minds once they’re done, so make sure they’re so strong you smell the baboon poop.

Will 30,000 rabid readers raid the bookshelves of every store in town? Can baboons remind us of our own responsibility in the fight against global warming? Will they stroke the soft baboon fur beneath fingertips as they flip each glossy page?

Convince them of it. If the first and last mental images connect to each other, they’ll ascend to the summit of important things your readers shove in their baboon-loving brains.

Use these guidelines.

Commit them to memory.

Apply them to every mode of communication related to your writing or business.

You may never find how they connect to baboons, but you’ll start winning the hearts of your audience and increase your chances of writing success.