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7 Agatha Christie-Inspired Rules for Authors

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Dame Agatha Christie, known for her mystery novels and the now-iconic detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, enjoys ongoing status as the world’s best-selling author.

Christie’s habits have much to teach writers about both the craft and the career of a successful writer. Here’s some advice gleaned from the life and habits of Dame Agatha – along with some links to additional information to help you utilize that advice today.

1. Be a good observer

According to those who knew her, Christie “listened more than she talked, who saw more than she was seen,” and she was reported had over 100 notebooks where she jotted details. Those notebooks that have survived have been analyzed and, in the book Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks, traced forward to the plots and characters they inspired and offer a glimpse into the process of a brilliant and prolific

Christie “saw more than she was seen.” @thegoldbergs via @giphy

In Christie’s first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, the character Hercule Poirot (who would go on to become one of the favorites) was inspired by the Belgian WWI refugees who settled in her hometown. Her second book was inspired by a conversation the writer overheard in a tea shop.

Whether it’s the cadences of natural dialogue or the personality tics of a particular character, good writers draw from life and in order to do that, you have to observe.

2. Turn your dull day job into an asset

Christie reportedly started writing mysteries partly because she had a tedious volunteer job dispensing drugs for the Red Cross during WWI. During WWII, she worked in a hospital pharmacy and parlayed the gig into extensive research about poisons.

“But I hate my job and I hate my boss.”
“Then write something where you kill off your boss.” #9Marple @9GEM via @giphy

3. Get feedback on your work

Even though she was an accomplished writer, Christie got feedback from others. According to her grandson, Michael Pritchard, she used to read her first drafts to the family after dinner, “one or two chapters at a time… I think we were used as her guinea pigs at that stage; to find out what the reaction of the general public would be.”

Learn how to get constructive feedback for your book-in-progress, on this site.

4. Understand your book contract & watch the bottom line

Christie’s first book was published by John of Bodley Head, who signed her next six books as well.  Like many first-time authors, she later realized how unfair and exploitative the deal was.

To fully understand your own first – or third – book contract, check out the Author’s Guild for tips and advice.

And remember this quote from Dame Agatha herself: “There are doubtless certain unworldly people who are indifferent to money. I myself have never met one.” 

Professional authors need to watch the bottom line. 

5. Get yourself a good literary agent

Eventually, Agatha Christie found a literary agent, Edmund Cork, of Hughes Massie. Cork who got her a new publisher — William Collins and Sons, which is now today is HarperCollins — who gave her a better book deal.

A good literary agent — or the Author’s Guild — can help with a contract.
www.simpsonsworld.com via @giphy

6. Delegate and utilize technology

Though not rich most of her life, Agatha Christie managed to have household help and childcare – and she used a then-revolutionary Dictaphone to dictate her novels and had them transcribed by others.

To preserve time for writing, how can you delegate chores or use technology? 

7. Keep challenging yourself as a writer

Needing a change of pace and not content to write only mystery novels, Christie wrote women’s fiction under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott and also wrote stage plays.

Bonus rule: To be used with caution

A little scandal never hurt anyone? Read more about the original “Gone Girl”‘s life to see how a teensy bit of unexplained craziness may kept Dame Agatha in the news 😉 

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Need a more book writing or marketing advice or tactics or other publishing advice? Here are marketing lessons from the best-selling cookbook author and first food media star, Julia Child and some of my pro insights about content marketing (which is what authors and writers do, after all).

And for more personalized advice, see the Resources & Quick Solutions to learn about ContentMeant’s offerings.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links relevant to the content. Purchases made through those links, which are distinguished from other links by their bold typeface may result in a small commission to ContentMeant at no extra cost to the buyer.

Content Marketing 101

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What’s known as “content marketing” is actually the art and science of building true relationships with your prospects and clients by sharing informative, actionable, free information — usually via digital means — to show them what your company offers and what your brand stands for.

In short, it is “show, don’t sell.” In fact, I like to compare content marketing to party conversation…

Content marketing starts with strategically understanding your own brand and the unique value proposition of the services you deliver. Then, it involves targeting the audiences for your services — figuring out precisely who they are, where they are, and by what means (digital, video, print, etc.) they are best reached.

Content marketing tools

An overarching tool for content marketing is the:

  • content marketing calendar (see screenshot, above)

This calendar is used to keep track of when and how each piece of content (or “asset”) is sent out. The calendar is developed with an eye towards critical promotional dates, such as holidays or tentpole events that are important to the specific business.

The content marketing calendar may look daunting, but it really just a guide to help keep track of good, strategic and timely “conversational” topics you want to have, where you want to have them (social media, newsletter) — and to keep track of what materials you have or might need to develop (videos, blog posts, etc.) to help spur those timely conversations.

Other tools are used to “deliver” the content and each has their own specific uses and best practices.

  • website – to provide a firm foundation for your information
  • blog – to demonstrate your expertise on an ongoing basis and (with SEO), help ensure search engines find your website. 
  • newsletters – to stay in touch with current and potential clients
  • social media – to create awareness and engagement among various audiences
  • video – a key information delivery mechanism, to be deployed on all of the various other tools
  • list building & lead nurturing mechanisms – digital forms and automated responses to help draw people into your newsletter
  • ebooks or other “lead magnets” – robust content delivered to help capture leads
  • virtual press kits – used to target media for PR

One non-digital tool for content marketing is a:

  • book – which can be an effective brand extension that lends authority and creates a reason for media opportunities.

SEO and content marketing

As you send your content out into the digital world, you need to optimize it so search engines can more easily find it. This search engine optimization (aka SEO) is a critical element of digital marketing success.

Part of an overall marketing strategy 

Content marketing should be deployed to work in tandem with all promotional and brand efforts, such as:

  • collateral – brochures, flyers, etc.
  • advertisements – paid social media, print, radio, television
  • public relations & media outreach
  • events – trade shows, fairs, conferences
  • environmental – signage, posters, trade show booths

Working cohesively, all parts of the marketing mix can amplify each other, to most effectively attract prospects and clients.

Need content marketing campaign strategy or development? ContentMeant can help. 

Whether content marketing strategy or implementation, if you need guidance, get in touch.

How to Get Feedback on Your Book

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Early drafts of anything—novel, book proposal, screenplay, children’s book—are rarely ready for the prime-time of literary agents’ or editors’ in-boxes. For that reason, it’s advisable to get feedback on your work, to vet it and revise it before you send it out into the world for potential representation by a literary agent or potential sale to a book publisher.

For those going the self-publishing route, getting constructive reader feedback now can mean that your book appeals to more readers—or addresses more reader needs—when it’s out in the marketplace. So feedback is advisable for authors who are self-publishing, too.

1. Be appreciative of any feedback

The goal of getting feedback and revising your manuscript accordingly is to improve it before the pros or a broader audience sees it. Getting and acting on good feedback 

So, first, some reminders:

  • Reading and giving feedback takes valuable time—and being thoughtful about it takes even more time. Please appreciate your readers. Because all readers provide useful information.
  • Reading and giving feedback is meant to help. Take in all feedback—no matter what the message, no matter how it’s delivered—in a spirit of thankfulness. 

2. Remember: you want constructive, actionable notes

Writers whose friends and acquaintances read their work like to be told things like, “I really liked it!” or, even better, “I loved it!” (C’mon, admit it.)

“Liked” and “loved” are actually vague and subjective opinion and, while nice to hear, that’s actually not very useful to you right now.

What is useful—what you want—is for people to be thoughtful and constructive and honest enough to also tell you what’s not working in your novel. Notice I didn’t write “what’s wrong” —that, too, is subjective. The answers to the question “What’s not working for you?” is feedback you can use to improve your story.

3. Ask for / prompt for specific feedback

Tell your readers that you welcome their “like” and “love,” but you can really use some specifics about why they liked what they liked and loved what they loved. And what they did not.

Here are some prompts you might give readers before they read your work:

  • Did you have difficulty understanding anything?
  • Were you able to follow the plot or (for non-fiction), the flow of the information?
  • Did you stumble over anything?
  • Did you perceive any gaps in the narrative? Any places where you could’ve used more information?
  • Did you have difficulty getting beyond a certain plot point or passage? Where was that?
  • Did any passages strike you as slow-moving or boring?
  • What did you think about the characters?
  • Did any characters behave in a way that seemed “out-of-character,” as they’d behaved previously in the story?
Once you have the first draft down, get feedback and edit.
[www.simpsonsworld.com via @giphy]

There are many more questions you can ask, depending on the specifics of your book, but the general idea is to get your reader talking about what might ultimately need clarification.

4. Analyze the feedback 

Now you need to seriously examine the feedback you’ve been so generously given. Analysis takes some time and thought. 

When reviewing feedback, know that readers may not all be great at articulating what’s bothering them about When a reader says “I didn’t understand when,” “I was confused at the point…,” “What exactly was happening with…?” pay close attention.

If a person mentions to you any sort of dissatisfaction about a certain passage (or plot point or chapter or character) in any context, it indicates that there is a sticking point for that reader, something that bugs them.

If more than one person stumbles over that same passage—even if the exact feedback is slightly different or even conflicting—you have a plot (or tone or character or clarity or pacing…) problem you need to address. For example, “The part about the apocalypse seemed really long” and “I didn’t understand why the hero saved the villain during the apocalypse” points to the fact that your apocalypse needs work.

5. If you have to explain it, you really should change it…

When hearing feedback, some writers have a tendency to explain themselves and defend his/her writing or story or choices against the reader’s notes. (“I know it’s confusing but I want to keep the readers off balance,” “But the villain is meant to be a complex character,” “The scientific studies are conflicting…”)

Fight that urge. What you might be encountering is a disconnect between your writer’s vision and what the reader is experiencing. Solving for these disconnects is the whole purpose behind getting feedback — you want to ensure your own creative or informative vision makes it smoothly to the reader. 

So, instead of getting defensive, get curious about what the reader is experiencing. Ask more questions, dig deeper. For example, you might ask:

  • “What exactly did you find confusing in that section? Was it confusing you want to know more about what’s going on? Or confusing like “This is too confusing to make me want to continue?”
  • Was it that you didn’t understand why the villain would help the hero? Or was it just that the writing wasn’t clear and you didn’t understand what was going on in that chapter in general? 
  • The scientific studies do show conflicting results — what didn’t you understand about the way I presented that?

Again, honor the time and effort it takes to read and give feedback by truly exploring it and taking it very seriously. 

6. … but you get to make your own artistic choices.

The goal is to resolve the readers’ sticking points in a way that satisfies and still honors your creative vision. Yes, doing so takes skill and craft and you’ll be working on that, too. 

Note that you might get suggestions: “You should make her kill the intruder, not just maim him.” “He should get set up on a double-date with her grandmother.” “It would be funnier if the character had Tourettes Syndrome.” Ultimately, of course, you’re the author—you can absolutely ignore specific suggestions or solutions even while you take seriously the reader’s impression or thought behind it. 

If you’re unable to figure out how to solve for a certain problem, ask for specific feedback about that section from another writer whose opinions you trust.

Paying attention to thoughtful feedback can help you better engage your first professional readers— agents or editors or others who are critical to your getting that book published.

7. Rewrite, rewrite, rewrite

Now… 

Rewrite, rewrite, rewrite. [via @giphy]

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Need a dose of professional book publishing advice? Check out the Resources & Quick Solutions for a sampling of how ContentMeant can help you move your book or your book marketing forward.

Mastering the Art of Book Marketing by… Julia Child

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Julia Child (August 15, 1912 – August 13, 2004) was a master of cookbook marketing and “offline” social media promotion. When I worked in-house for book publishers, I had the pleasure of working with Child herself and also on working on a biography of hers (Appetite for Life by Noel Riley Fitch). 

Child, the author of the seminal cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, worked hard on her a long road to publishing that first book. But it led to her becoming host of Public Television’s “The French Chef,” and she has been hailed as the first true television food personality. Her cookbooks and “how-to” shows brought a passion for cooking and food into millions of American homes and paved the way for the generations of TV chefs who came later.

Having worked with the author in her later years, I can attest to the fact that Child was a lifelong, tireless, exuberant, low-maintenance and good-natured advocate for her books.

Here are some overall book promotion lessons you can take from Julia Child:

1. Start With Great Content

The path to getting her first cookbook published was a long one — Mastering the Art of French Cooking took nearly a decade for Child and her co-authors (and her editor, Judith Jones) to develop.

Child created much of her own book promotion momentum by writing and producing high quality cookbook “content” to begin with. She had:

  • A strong vision for the cookbook
  • Impeccably tested recipes
  • Precisely written recipes and instruction
  • Engaging headnotes

2. Don’t Rely Solely on Your Book Publisher for Marketing & Publicity

Mastering the Art of French Cooking was published on October 16, 1961. According to her memoir, My Life in France, Child’s publisher Knopf was doing some advertising for the book, but “… most of the promotion job fell to [Child and co-author Simone Beck].

Julia Child personally hit the book marketing hard [@juliachild via giphy]

3. Leverage All Your “Social Media” Networks

The Childs and Beck  “…decided to travel to places where we knew people who could put us up for the night and help arrange book signings, lectures and cooking demonstrations.”

Friends threw book parties and made an effort to help connect the new authors with “the fancy food types.” Through her “social networks” Child was introduced to established and respected food professionals like James Beard, Dion Lucas, Jacques Pepin, which helped create a “buzz” about the book among foodies.

4. Be Prepared for Anything… And Be A Good Sport

Like any cookbook author worth her sea salt, Child and Beck were game for any and all opportunities and worked hard at their cooking demonstrations.

Child noted that the team often had to compensate for lack of organization on the part of the stores or organizations that were hosting their demonstrations.

Paul Child pitched in to do whatever was necessary — organizing, hauling, art directing, or washing dishes.

5. Capitalize on Book Publicity Momentum

On October 18, 1961 Craig Claiborne gave the book a rave book review The New York Times (see “Great Content,” above). In tandem with Julia, her publisher Knopf’s publicity department leveraged that review and book buzz into any author’s dream of publicity hits, including appearances on The Today Show and articles in Life, Vogue, House and Garden and many more publications.

6. Take Advantage of New Book Marketing Platforms

One promotional appearance would prove to be life- and career-changing for the newly-minted cookbook author as the culmination of her hard work paid off in a rare opportunity.

Julia and Paul Child did not yet own a TV set when she was invited to do a publicity appearance on the Boston public television station WGBH to promote her new cookbook on a show called I’ve Been Reading. Not knowing what to expect, she worked hard like she always did and brought equipment with her and demonstrated a few proper cooking techniques—how to beat egg whites, how to make an omelette, and the like.

The appearance was so successful that the station ordered three experimental half-hours of a cooking show with Julia. Despite an inauspicious fire that burned down the WGBH studio just before taping, the show went on in a borrowed kitchen. The first three episodes—“The French Omelette,” “Coq au Vin” and “Souffles,” respectively, were popular enough with home cook/viewers for WGBH to continue the series.

While today, having one’s own television show is the most coveted of all media platforms and hard to break in for a cookbook author (or any author, for that matter), there are numerous internet and social media platforms available for the ambitious cookbook author or any author who would wisely emulate Julia Child. You can even make your own book promotional videos.

Julia Child… working hard, having fun! [@juliachild via giphy]

7. Live as Julia Child did: Have fun!

Perhaps the best lesson heed the piece of advice Child gave to her My Life In France readers about cooking, which can be applied to marketing, as well: 

“… learn from your mistakes, be fearless, and above all have fun!”

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Need a more book marketing advice or tactics—or other book publishing advice? Check out the Resources & Quick Solutions to learn about ContentMeant’s offerings for authors.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links relevant to the content. Purchases made through those links, which are distinguished from other links by their bold typeface may result in a small commission to ContentMeant at no extra cost to the buyer.

Content Strategy in Action

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To show how content marketing works in the real world, here’s an example of content strategy in action from a large, global project I did for Samsung.

Strategy first, then content

Though Samsung sells its products through retailers — not directly to consumers — they wanted a way to engage consumers with their products across 70+ “regional” websites around the globe.

The solution was to develop content that would create a need for the product in the consumer’s view. But (as we marketing & strategy pros know), content strategy and marketing is NOT advertising, it is NOT an advertorial, it is NOT selling. It’s creating a relationship with the client, customer or reader. And nobody likes a relationship where the other party is constantly hitting them over the head with how great they are and to BUY, BUY, BUY. Content marketing is “show, don’t sell“.

I was brought into the project as the first person on the content team, to bring the project into the real world, to develop a couple of dozen initial examples of exactly what the project would look like, to refine them, and to help create templates of  how the project would look when globally scaled and executed by a larger team. 

Building the content strategy

After analysis and strategic thinking, it was determined that the content that accompanied  that would actually be product agnostic. It would be useful, in a friendly brand voice. 

For example:

  • An article on better sleep habits made a strong point about room temperature. Among the many sleep hints and tips, the piece mentioned that room temperature was important and some air conditioners could automatically adjust room temperature when someone is sleeping. The Samsung A/C units with this capability appeared next to the article. Those products got a huge boost in clicks/conversion rates.
  • The Samsung robotic vacuum cleaners (iRobot competitors) with the no-tangle pet hair brush when they were placed next to some tips for a cleaner home targeted to pet owners. 

For because we worked with lots of divisions and products, for each piece of content, we created a strategic brief — a sort of strategy outline before we proceeded, in order to nail down the main take-away of the article and how the helpful would link to the product without being salesy.  The brief included keywords, and other strategic SEO information. 

The articles were translated into eight languages and used worldwide. Of course, to appropriately bring eyeballs to the excellent content… 

Create strategically to amplify the content

In addition to creating a vast library, for each of the articles, the team members created strategic  marketing campaigns for the content by creating marketing “modules” — text and graphics with links that teased and invited visitors to the content from other areas of the site. We also created teaser Facebook and Twitter posts some strategically designed to engage users, others to inform users, etc. 

In that way, we had the strategic social media program “at the ready” to deploy when an article was finally approved and posted.

These assets were added to the masterlist of available content and to the content calendar for reuse at appropriate promotional periods.

Success metrics

[by @tonybabel via giphy]

This strategically-developed, informational and product agnostic content created more consumer engagement than even Samsung’s video content (my NDA doesn’t allow me to share the actual figures).

But because the success metrics were so compelling, the initial content strategy turned into a 3+ year engagement (for my client as well as for me and an  team of writers).

Yes, this content marketing will work for you

Like many of my clients, Samsung is a huge corporation. But substitute “blog post” for “article” and the principles are the same for any-sized effort. 

Create informative, useful, interesting, substantial and high-quality posts related to what your service or product is and “socialize” it – spread the word via social media (making sure you use hashtags). Use inline links to keep people engaged with your site.

And you keep doing it.

[@kimmyschmidt via giphy] 

Do you need a content marketing strategy?

ContentMeant can help. Read more and feel free to get in touch.

How to Craft A Better Book Title

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A great book title is one of the first marketing tools in the publishing toolbox. Crafting an effective book title — one that entices as many readers as possible to the book — can be as complex as any other product naming task. The goal is to pull people in with the title — and ultimately, to sell more books. 

And while book title generator tools may be able to spit out some great brainstorming ideas,  the truth is there’s no automated substitute for the process. It takes a human touch to know and understand who the potential readers for the book are, what value the book is providing them, and how to communicate that value in just a few words of title and subtitle.

How to create a book title: the basics

Titling a book was a big subject for me when I was running TheBalanceCareers Book Publishing Site. Here are a few articles I wrote for on how to develop a great title…

A Book Naming Process Case Study

Taken from my time at a cookbook publisher, here’s an example of how a publishing team of editors and marketing folks and the author’s team turned a just-OK book title into a powerful title and subtitle combination that greatly expanded the potential market for the book.

So… a book proposal came into the house with a title that basically relayed its subject matter: Kosher Vegetarian Cooking, by Gil Marks. It was a collection of — you guessed it — vegetarian cooking for those who also keep kosher, from a variety of traditional sources. 

Does the title address the main market for the book?

Now, this is a straightforward book title that certainly speaks to its market — that is, people who:

  1. Don’t eat meat (a good sized book market these days) and
  2. Keep kosher (a much more limited market)

The intersection of kosher vegetarians felt like a limited market. The original book title spoke to kosher vegetarian cookbook buyers, but it almost felt like it was excluding others and limited the market. 

How to expand  the market reach? It would be hard with the existing title.

Would a great subtitle help? 

An explanatory or engaging subtitle might help, but it wouldn’t solve the whole problem.

Consider a subtitle like: “Great meatless dishes anyone can enjoy”. It still wouldn’t quite have the marketing “oomph” to overcome the majority of non-vegetarian, non-kosher cookbook buyers’ impression that “This book isn’t for me.”

What title could broaden the readers who might also enjoy the book?

With the goal of expanding the market, those involved with the book’s development dug deep into the text and the philosophies behind the book and brainstormed and did market research into the competition (see “human touch” above). 

A quote from the Bible was pulled out of the text:

“A land of wheat and barley, of grape vines and fig trees and pomegranates; a land of olive trees and honey . . . you shall eat and be satisfied.”?—Deut. 8:8-10

Deconstructed, some of the thinking that went into the titling process:

  • Wheat and barley sound… a little too “whole grain cookbook”
  • “Fig trees and pomegranates” was a combination perhaps a little too purely exotic to go wide — in addition, pomegranates were were having “a foodie moment”, which meant maybe the title might not age as well into the backlist.

And the winning book title is… 

After many meetings and much deliberation, the title was determined to be: Olive Trees and Honey: A Treasury of Vegetarian Recipes from Jewish Communities Around the World.

Instead of limiting the book market, this evocative and lovely cookbook title brings to mind luscious ingredients. The subtitle provides an explanation and honors the cultural and religious heritage of the contents while it suggests the communal importance food and the promises of delicious recipes. Even the word “treasury” suggests value.

This delicious book title would bring the book to a much broader audience, like: 

  • People who eat olives and honey — ingredients that are in wide usage and that have shown no signs of abating in popularity in the past few thousand years.
  • The larger Jewish community that doesn’t keep kosher.
  • Cookbook lovers of all kinds who are interested in recipe collections.
  • People interested in world food history.
  • And, of course, kosher vegetarians.

Olive Trees and Honey: A Treasury of Vegetarian Recipes from Jewish Communities Around the World went on to win a James Beard Foundation Cookbook Award and to become a IACP Cookbook Award finalist.

Would Kosher Vegetarian Cooking have done the same?

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Need a quick hit of book publishing advice about your title—or anything else? Check out the Book Strategy Quickie for a robust sampling of ContentMeant’s expertise—at a reasonable price—focused on moving your work or your marketing forward.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links relevant to the content. Purchases made through those links, which are distinguished from other links by their bold typeface may result in a small commission to ContentMeant at no extra cost to the buyer.