Starley Murray Image and Branding Strategist Goes Into Detail on How To Write Your Backstory or Point of View for OPM Author / Book Contest
Do you want to enter the competition and don’t know how to answer to contest questions? Starley goes into great detail to help you put together a winning entry.
On Purpose Magazine is known for helping authors promote themselves and since we love authors we want to do more.
In the audio above famed image and branding strategist Starley Murray discusses with JW Najarian the tips, tricks and secrets of writing your Point of View (POV) or what is also referred to as the Backstory in your efforts toward winning the OPM Author / Book Competition and using it in your marketing and promotion yourself and your books.
Starley Murray
I choose Celebrity Image Expert Starley Murray to help us build our backstory or Point of View (POV) because Starley has been on TV every single month for the past ten years with nearly 3000 appearances overall.
Specializing in brand development, media training and publicity image she has been in demand with celebrities, Fortune 500 companies, industry experts, and TV stations for the last 20 years. Starley has generated more than $1 Million in sales directly from her TV appearances and media productions.
She’s called upon by stars from Inside Edition and the E! Channel and many celebrities like Brooke Burke, Tommy Lee Jones, Marie Osmond, and Eva Longoria. Starley’s plugged in to internationally recognized media events like the Academy Awards and has interviewed hundreds of celebrities on the red carpet and leverages her appearances to support Cancer Survivors and Domestic Violence Prevention.
She is proud to be regularly requested for coaching behind the scenes at the American Idol try outs and all while on live television as a media correspondent for a FOX TV news show!
Writing Your Backstory or Point of View for the OPM Contest
The On Purpose Magazine (OPM) Author Book Competition is not based on your book, but rather on your story around the book. OPM wants to help authors promote their books and believe the first thing you need to have is a great package put together to help promote, market and sell you and your book.
OPM has put a contest together to find the most original, compelling and great backstory or author point of view which will be the basis of all your promotional and marketing efforts going forward.
Here are the questions you will be asked to answer for the competition and an explanation of how to answer them to help you build a winning entry.
Even if you do not enter the competition and you should… just check out the prizes; you will end up building a very strong foundation for the rest of your marketing and promotional campaigns going forward so have fun and get creative!
The following is an outline of the lesson on the audio. Use both guide you or not. There is no right way to answer these questions. I am sure many of you will answer from the heart and just blow us away and some of you will step out of the box, the box is in.
OPM Author / Book contest questions
Who Is The Author?
Give Us Your Story, Background, History or something interesting that might tie you to the book.
- Share your experiences about your back ground history (often called your back story) to give the reader a way to connect with you.
- Concentrate your story on an inspiring and/or exciting experience from your life.
- Don’t discount the power of others relating to you if the experience is common and not action packed. Common threads are strong connections.
- Develop your backstory and share your emotions to connect to your reader.
- Have a short one minute back story as well as a longer version such as a five minute presentation. Likely you will get the most mileage from your short sound bites for media related experiences and the longer versions when you have the opportunity to more deeply connect with your readers/audience.
What Is This Book About?
What is the theme? Give us a short Description of the Book and the Story.
- Your theme or genre to your book is also a form of branding. You may have more than one applicable theme. If so, prioritize your themes and lead with the strongest.
- Develop your description of the book in ways to invoke the reader’s senses such as sight, sound, taste or touch. In video and television interviews, strong visuals are strong forms of publicity.
- Keep your description short in length of words and impactful in meaning of your words. In the media, the less you say …the more they will listen. It’s how you say it that can be most impactful.
- Be purposeful as to the order of words and sentences in your descriptions. The first impression rule still applies and you can set the tone and support the mood of the reader from beginning to end.
Why Did You Write This Book?
What compelled you to write this book? Why you and not someone else?
- Combine your unique back story with your special interests and skills when sharing the reasons why you wrote your book. Having a unique fusion of inspiration with special skills makes your brand more difficult to copy by others competing for publicity.
- Differentiate your writing styles and share why your take on your top is unique.
- Reveal something about yourself that is specific only to you as an author or person.
- Share your reasons to write this book that may be different from what inspires other authors or readers of your topic.
Why should someone read this book?
Why should someone read this book and who should read this book? Who will this book entertain, inspire, educate, and help?
- List all the reasons your book can help other people and make a difference.
- Categorize the reasons that can help readers immediately in their lives, and the ones that can help them long term as well as those reasons that just might make them smile or feel like they are a part of something special that is bigger than them as one person.
- Then pick the top three reasons from each of these three areas to support your reason why someone should read your book to answer the questions readers often ask themselves pharmacy no prescription subconsciously. (What’s in it for me)
- Determine who your target market is and adjust your language and pinpoint your promotional campaign to reach the groups that have the highest interest in your book.
The Contest
Over 3 Million books come out every year and only a handful of them make any money or get any recognition. In fact 50% of all new books make less than $250 on average in their first year!
This is a startling and amazingly sad fact and it is not because the books are not worthy, solid, or wonderful, but because the marketing efforts behind the books are almost non existent or worse, a lot of money is spent in the wrong direction.
I have interviewed many bestselling and not best selling authors and I always get the same feedback. Marketing and promotions is the hardest part of writing a book.
What is one of the best ways to market and promote? Simple, let people get to know you. Exposure is not enough. You need the right type of exposure. This helps you build credibility and puts you on course to build a community which is one of the best ways to create buzz and sell more books.
On Purpose Magazine Wants To Help Authors Promote Their Books
On Purpose Magazine is doing something different and very special for the new and not so new author to help them get more of the right type of exposure.
We will not be reading your book! What?? How can you have a Author / Book Competition / Contest without reading the book? Again Simple…
If you write a great book, give it a fantastic title and put a great picture on the front… guess how many people will beat a path to your door to get this book? Generally no one. First people need to know that it is available, but more importantly people need a reason to pick it up to read.
What is the best way to promote my book?
Through my many interviews and working with authors and publicists and public relations executives I have learned that what an author needs beyond a great book, is a well defined, compelling, interesting or relate-able story.
The Author needs to get exposure from many different sources.
- Radio (Internet, Satellite and Terrestrial)
- Television (Internet, Local and National)
- Newspaper
- Magazines
- Industry Publications
- Other Publications
- Associations
- Groups
- Word of Mouth
- and Many Others
But are you ready for your close up? Do you know what you are going to say or how your going to say it?
Many of the 3 million authors will never get their work exposed and many others will get some type of exposure, but waste it by not knowing what to say and how to present themselves.
What an author needs is a package that is put together and tested. Starting with a headshot, bio and compelling book description. It will also be nice to have a professional interview with a professional publication, completed and on your resume.
This is what this contest will give the author. On Purpose Magazine’s contest is all about what we call the author’s Point of View (POV). The POV is the author’s backstory, reason for writing the book and reason why the reader absolutely needs to have this book or get it for a friend..
OPM’s contest will choose a winner based on the best POV submitted. The winner will receive one of our Gold Premium Promotional Package including a full page story with a full 30 minute professional interview that will be featured in OPM and shared out to thousands and thousands of readers, industry people and is, of course, yours to distribute as you see fit all your promotional needs. There will also be other bonuses from our industry sponsors.
So by the time you are done you will have:
- A Headshot (you supply the headshot, but you have to have one for the interview and you can take it with your cell phone, but don’t screw yourself. Take a decent one.)
- A Bio (You must supply this also, but if you complete the contest, believe me you will have a great one.)
- A Point of View (The basis for all your marketing, promotion, interviews and more)
- A professional interview published on a recognized web magazine.
- One great resume entry
For new authors this will be you breaking the ice and getting more and more interviews or speaking engagements. For some of you seasoned authors this will be a chance for you to get more and better exposure and to dust off your old POV and create another, or it may be your chance to get noticed in the new social media.
Give yourself a Chance to be Recognized
On Purpose Magazine is well known and respected by publicists and public relations firms that use the new media to help promote their authors.
On Purpose Magazine is becoming well known around the celebrity community as a place where the celeb can speak and promote their cause.
On Purpose Magazine gets great Google, Alexa and SEO rankings form all the major search engines so we already have the built in traffic and tools to help new and seasoned authors promote their work.
Your interview with be shown and featured alongside well known, bestselling authors, Hollywood Celebrities, Business Leaders and Teachers and more.
If you do not want to try and win a spot in the magazine there are a limited amount of spots available at a reasonable rate. OPM wants to make it affordable for authors to get themselves interviewed professionally, but since OPM does everything the old fashioned way… from scatch, OPM cannot do more than a few of these interviews. We will be offering them on a first come, first served basis.
Submit your Point of View today…. We have put together a course in how to put together a great POV which was taken from a $1500 course, but will be made available to our entrants at no charge…. This is worth the price of admission alone.
All entrants will get mentioned in the magazine with a coveted link to their book and site. This is worth the entry fee also….
cONTEST nOTE
This is our first contest so there will be glitches and screw ups. Try and follow the directions as best as possible and if you still have problems drop me a line with your phone number so we can help you through it.
We expect issues, but will work hard to make sure they are as painless as possible… Thanks…
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