Unconventional Strategies for Brave Marketers
A book. A show. Creative collaborations. And Dog Food.
Welcome to the Creativity Business, a newsletter about earning attention and differentiating yourself as a marketer or content creator. If you’re not a subscriber, sign up and get content & differentiation strategy delivered to your inbox every two weeks for free.
I try not to use this space to talk about my own endeavours very often, but I’m making an exception because I want to share a content and marketing strategy that I’m really excited about.
And in order to share my idea, I have to tell you that I have written a book, it’s coming out on October 1st, and it’s officially available for pre-orders now.
The book is called “Earn It: Unconventional Strategies for Brave Marketers” and, much like this newsletter, it’s about how to earn attention and differentiate your marketing and content in a very crowded and noisy world.
I Have Strived for Creative Bravery…
To earn attention, you have to create something really valuable and highly differentiated, and I really hope I’ve done that with this book. I’ve had amazing support and guidance from the team at Page Two and I’m very proud of how it’s all come together.
I’ve recently shared a draft with people who are icons for me in the marketing and content space and have been floored that they have not only read it but also have some very nice things to say about it:
“Earn It! is like Seth Godin meets Steven Pressfield. Steve Pratt gives us an insider's perspective on the critical mission of earning and sustaining an audience's attention. The book is a winning combination of practical and playful -- it's sure to earn a large following among marketers.”
Dan Heath, best-selling co-author of Made To Stick, Switch, and The Power of Moments.
"Who wouldn’t like a more effective way to market their stuff? Earn It is a bold manifesto against mediocrity in marketing and a powerful path to transforming your approach."
Jonah Berger, Wharton Professor and best-selling author of Contagious and The Catalyst
"What if your prospects and customers wanted to hear from you? What if they grew to anticipate you in their inbox, on social media, in a streaming platform? How? Well, friend... Steve Pratt has an answer for you."
Ann Handley, WSJ best-selling author of Everybody Writes, and Chief Content Officer, MarketingProfs
Now it’s Time for Commitment
Creating something valuable and interesting is only half the job, though. With any content project, you also have to spend a lot of time and effort marketing it effectively. That is where I find myself now. The writing is done. It’s time to do the hard work of letting people know that the writing exists.
I struggled with the idea of marketing the book for a while because I don’t like talking about myself and don’t want to annoy people by talking about the book all the time. Annoying people is the antithesis of the book’s message.
However, I’ve also seen a lot of deserving creative work fail to earn much attention because the creators were too timid to market it. If no one knows about it, you’re not going to get much attention…
You have to market your work and your ideas if you want to earn attention.
Recently, I had a really fun idea pop into my head and I’m very excited about it. In fact, this is the most excited I’ve been about something creative in a long time. And that is what I want to share with you.
A Season of Creative Marketing
This is somewhat obvious, but if you decide to write a book about how to earn attention with content, you kinda have to practice what you preach, eat your own dog food, and walk the talk. The book has to employ the ideas in the book. And the marketing of the book has to employ the ideas in the book about how to market your content effectively.
And the advice in the book that I have trumpeted from the hilltops for years is that your marketing has to be something the audience values and enjoys. It has to be original and differentiated enough to earn attention and to earn word-of-mouth status.
The marketing for this book can’t be boring or generic.
So, against the strong concerns of my inner critic and likely the future scorn of my children, I am going to do some really fun stuff over the next several months.
I’m Making a Show
First, I’m going to be making a show on TikTok and Instagram Reels. It’s going to be like The Office or Parks & Rec—a fake documentary about marketing the book. The show will utilize the ideas in the book, but it’s not going to try to sell them. I am trying to make it an example of “show, don’t tell.”
The goal of this is to entertain people and have fun doing it. It’s not to pitch books. If people like the show, they will know the book exists, and hopefully, they will consider buying it. But… first and foremost, I want to make a great show.
Audience comes first.
Earning attention is what success looks like.
It has to be from me, not about me.
Collaborating with Awesome People
Second, I’m going to collaborate with a boatload of awesome, creative people like Steve & Perry above. I have been lucky to work with some exceptionally talented folks in my career and having a fun project like this is a phenomenal reason to work with some of my favourite people again.
Am I potentially going to look like an idiot? Yep. Don’t care. I want to go for it and have fun and try to make something unique that stands out. I want to have zero regrets about my level of Creative Bravery and my Commitment to marketing.
So… if you want to follow along, here’s my TikTok account and my Instagram account.
And here are the first three videos of “the show”...
Onwards!
(And, of course, I would be honoured if you considered pre-ordering the book to give it some momentum out of the gate. You can get it here . Pre-orders make a huge difference, so thank you for considering it!)
What’s Earned My Attention Recently
Bree Groff is a senior advisor at SYPartners and is in the process of writing a book. We met because we are both working with Page Two books. Bree writes a great newsletter and I really enjoyed her latest post about the value of a “Do Nothing Day.”