Monday’s author planning tip

Published & Profitable friends and members are invited to a free Power of Peresonas teleseminar Tuesday, July 7, where you can learn the basics of creating reader and website visitor personas. Personas are planning tools that help authors plan, write, promote, and profit from their books.

Personas help authors and others on their team–like webmasters and graphic designers–”get inside their readers’ head” in order to make better-informed copywriting and design decisions.

What are personas?

Personas are short fictional stories describing the attitudes, characteristics, goals, information needs, and motivations  of different groups of readers. They help authors identify the attitudes, characteristics, goals, information needs, and motivations  of different groups of readers and website visitors.

Often, personas are just 1 page long.

Each persona is introduced with a first name and a stock photograph used to bring each reader category of to life.

In most cases, 3 to 5 personas is enough for a project; rarely are more than 7 required.

Personas and the power of story

The story in a persona is told in a few brief paragraphs and short bulleted lists that describe who the individual is, where they work, what their family situation is like, and–most important–what their problems are and the goals they want to accomplish.

Personas originated in the field of information architecture and web usability, but they can help authors at every step of writing and marketing their book:

• Planning. Authors can use personas to plan their book’s title and organize their book’s table of contents.
• Writing. Personas can help authors select the right language for chapter titles, headings, and subheads.
• Promoting. Creating personas will help authors focus their website on their information and navigation that will help readers and prospects locate the information they desire when visiting the website.
• Profiting. Personas will help authors correctly target the needs of their prospective buyers of their products and services.

How to attend Tuesday’s free teleseminar

Bring your questions about personas to Roger C. Parker’s free Published & Profitable Power of Personas teleseminar call on <!– /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:”"; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; line-height:150%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:”Times New Roman”; mso-fareast-font-family:”Times New Roman”;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} –>

Tuesday July 7, 2009 at 11:00 AM EST.

To attend, call 218-486-1616 and enter PIN: 513391#.