The Modern Age Author-Make Your Content Creation Stand Out

Have you heard the term content creation for the modern age author?

You know—where you create stories from ideas to promote you as an author who has written a book.

In this blog post, I’m excited to share my conversation with literary agent, Ms Elizabeth Kracht from Kimberley Cameron Associates.

In our conversation, she was extremely kind and friendly, answered all my questions about building author’s platform, blogging to attract your target audience and using creativity to come up with new ideas. A huge part of content creation is really about being creative with your ideas so you can stand out.

Would you like to know how content creation can help you as a modern age author build your platform?

Are you ready to be open to learn? Then let’s begin!

Content Creation

A Book Marketing Strategy

What is content creation? For the modern author, content creation is a term for using original ideas to create content—by blogging, doing podcast and creating videos that stands out to attract your audience.

Why would you want to do this?

I would say, to cause a stir in the atmosphere by sharing your experiences, to help with problem solving.

In the process, your audience recall a memory that connects them to you or your story.

As human beings, we live in a monotonous cycle of routine. How boring can that be!

So here’s a thought, what do readers look for in stories? Perhaps like me, they seek to experience the extraordinary moments from our ordinary world.

Content creation is about sharing stories and experiences to compliment your book. Give your audience a front row ticket to go behind the scenes and get to know you in person.

Imagine with me for a second, why do you take vacations, travel or hike on a mountain top? Perhaps for a brief second, in that moment you experience what it feels like to be alive!

Why Memories are Important

When I lived in Singapore, I loved to go paktow or jalan jalan as we locals call it. It means to go out and have fun, most of the time I went out with with my Mom. We went to the movies, sitting in a dark theatre made my heart beat faster. When the movie started the atmosphere turned my ordinary everyday life into an adventure on a huge wide screen (sight). The sound (hearing) so crisp and clear, gave me goosebumps and I shivered until my heart began to sing the tunes. But it was the refreshing aircon (touch) that cooled my skin.

When the movie ended, we’d go to our favorite restaurant in Tampines Mall—Crystal Jade Palace for Dim Sum and pork with shrimp dumpling noodles. Oh, the chili oil paste (taste) made it all so delicious. Even while queuing for a table, the aroma of the delicious Cantonese cuisine (smell) made me hungrier. The whole experience is a treasured memory. I often recall them as precious moments with my Mom who currently is in her late eighty and slow in mobility.

Notice how I used the five senses to show how our senses engrave little cues to assist our memory. When all these 5 senses are engaged, an emotional experience is created and will be recalled when triggered by one or more of these senses. Let’s look more closely at how these five senses of the human touch can be used for content creation.

5 Senses of The Human Touch

All of us are born with five senses of sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell. These senses are what we develop as babies. Learning to use these senses ignites our feelings and emotions—you become intuitive through experience and see beyond the ordinary while engaging with your natural memory. In the process you recall a particular object and associate it to your feelings.

As adults, we have become sophisticated learners acquiring new capabilities. Some people are conscious while others are unconscious. But all of these senses in various ways, help us to collect information to process—to help them make sense of the experiences in the world around them.

There is a lot we can learn from this if we look further into learning behaviors.

Learning Behaviors

Visual learners are meticulous with absorbing information such as colors, brightness, contrast and sound elements. They integrate their abilities to emotionally experience the full extent of activities so they can prepare for what’s coming next.

Auditory learners relies on sound, and music tends to reinforce the retention of information. Their listening skills are in sync with the presenter’s voice and is fully focused on audio to retain information.

Kinesthetic learners rely on touch and feel to connect to their experience. For example, I love walking into a book store because the smell of books and its energy excites me. Turning the pages of a book gives me a sense of awe knowing how amazingly creative an author was to create a story in their mind, then pour it out into a book.

When it comes to marketing, authors need to know what motives the learning behavior of readers. It helps you build upon your marketing strategy to attract your targeted audience. Take them on your journey to experience an extraordinary path that is full of inspiration, lifting them up into action.

Know Your Audience

Apart from the normal everyday activities, all of us have hobbies that bring us joys. These activities makes us thrive to achieve certain lifestyles, so we can feel a sense of fulfillment. In the list below, you will see my favorite activities and hobbies which comes in all forms such as:

• Enjoying the comfort of being at home, writing on my deck, tending to my herbs and veggies,
• Reading magazines, books to expand my mind,
• I love to cook and sew for my family,
• I love bush walking and exploring the rainforest in Queensland

When you know what motivates a person behavior into action, you will know how you can support them further. Do your research on various social media platform to find audiences activities.

Knowing what motivates individual behaviors will clearly help you connect your story to meet their needs. Remember, we all want to experience the extraordinary from this ordinary world. And when you find the gap in what reader want, you can provide for their needs.

3 Key Areas for Problem Solving

We all face challenges and problems in our life. The question is how do we resolve these problems so we do not get stuck. Here are the three ways that often paralyze us into confusion.

1. Lack of Time
2. Technology is constantly changing
3. Life has become emotionally overwhelming.

As an author, consider how your story can help others to find clarity to move forward. In my memoirs, my story shows the steps I took to survive and heal to lessen my emotional exhaustion from teenage depression. I share this to show others that they are not alone in their quest to simply live in peace.

The question is how can your story help inspire a reader or help a fellow author.

Writing to Improve your Craft

Literary Agent Ms Elizabeth Kracht suggests authors to write essays as a way to connect and make relevant your work reflect with current events or even in pop culture that could possibly go viral. This helps you to improve your craft in storytelling as well as build your audience interest in you.

Using creative ways to conjure up ideas—to get your work out there can build your platform. She goes on to say that you are the only person who knows best how to promote your work. And in the process you grow your audience, they get to connect with you and know you as a person before you become the author.

Blogging to Share Insights

I’ve been a business blogger for nearly two decades and I love sharing ideas with my clients when it comes to creating family videos. Naturally as an author, I blog to share insights from my memoirs so I can connect with readers.

The results are clear, many readers reach out to me. Our little conversations involves discussions on books. I share photos and videos of places I mentioned in my book as well as stories of photos from Singapore, the place I grew up in my childhood years.

Using Video as a Marketing Strategy

Let’s face it! In one way or another, we search YouTube to find a how to video. I do it all the time for my sewing ideas and for cooking certain dishes. This had me thinking how I as an author could use video as a marketing strategy.

Video has helped reader to get to know the author behind the story, me! Many are connecting with me and are becoming a huge part of your journey into publishing. All I do is share photos of the stories I tell in my book, the places I’ve been to or talk about. And my audience get a front row ticket to experience my world.

Podcast as a Marketing Strategy

There are many authors, publishers and literary agents who are using Podcasting as a way to be seen and many of them provide some form of problem solving skills to help you improve your writing craft or pitch your manuscript. If you are uncomfortable on video, podcasting is another great way to help you stand out.

Write Minded Podcast is hosted by Brooke Warner and Grant Faulkner. I love listening to this podcast as a source of inspiration to help me improve my craft. I’ve learned so much from the author interviews and I highly recommend this podcast.

The All Gifts Podcast is hosted by Pandora Villasenor who is the debut author of her memoir All Gifts. Pandora shares inspiration and insights on her weekly podcast on how she turned her broken life around to heal and thrive. I highly recommend you listen to her podcast for inspiration to help you transform you life.

The Creative Penn Podcast for Writers is hosted by Joanna Penn. This is one of the first podcast I’ve ever listened to where she shares her publishing journey. It is filled with information to help you with marketing and more. She amazingly surprises me with new content all the time.

Consistency is the Key

Whatever medium you choose to use to create your content, be it video or podcast or blogging as part of your marketing strategy, remember to be consistent and show up regularly. This is a huge challenge even for me but I do the best I can when I can. When you are consistent, your audience remembers you and all you stand for.

When you realize that only you hold the key to unlock your future, you will never doubt your abilities to achieve your goals. All it takes is to be consistent in invoking your abilities and to use your ideas to innovate. You’ll be surprised by the amazing results!

Tell me in the comments below, what method of content creation do you use as a strategy to connect with your readers?