Ever noticed these manipulative songs?
There are some absolute belters guaranteed to get you struttin’ ya stuff.
The Daily Fail newspaper reported on a survey by We Buy Any Car listing
the top 30 dancefloor fillers.
And I noticed something about these songs that you can apply to your books.
It’s sneaky. See if you can spot it first.
Here’s a few of them…
You are a dancing Queen - Ooh…You can dance…You can jive
C’mon Eileen - Come on, Eileen, come on, Eileen…
Respect. - What you want, baby, I got it. What you need, do you know I got it? All I’m askin’ is for a little respect when you get home
I wanna dance with somebody - Ooh, I wanna dance with somebody. I wanna feel the heat with somebody. Yeah, I wanna dance with somebody. With somebody who loves me.
Livin’ on a Prayer - We’ve gotta hold on to what we’ve got. It doesn’t make a difference if we make it or not. We’ve got each other, and that’s a lot for love. We’ll give it a shot.
Brain worms the lot of them.
But what makes these songs more likely to get you on the dancefloor?
Did anything stand out for you?
It’s relevant to books - pinky promise.
If you answered ‘because they’re catchy tunes’ or they remind you of that time you got so drunk at Pete’s wedding and went into full on Beyonce mode. (Ah, those were the days.)
I would have agreed with you. Until now.
How long, how old, or how many times do you have to experience something for it to become nostalgic? There are people voting for these songs who weren’t even born when the song was first released.
So is it really just the fact that they’re catchy tunes?
Or is there something more sneaky at play?
(Err…there’d better be, Angie, otherwise what the heck would this email be about?)
Ok, I'll tell you.
Each song does one of two things, either there’s an indirect call to action (CTA) or they speak to our core values, beliefs and desires.
You are a dancing queen invites us to imagine we are dancing queens (queue the dad dancing).
Come on Eileen - I mean, I’ve no no idea who Eileen is, but c’mon, let’s hit the dancefloor.
Respect - Well, who doesn’t want that?
These things speak to who we are, how we want to be perceived, our values, our beliefs, our desires.
And so, when we immerse ourselves in the song, dancing our little hearts out, what we’re actually doing is embracing those values.
Or we’re simply following a subtle call to action.
Sneaky, eh?
So what’s this got to do with your book?
Well, I just want you to ask yourself, how does my title, book description, cover, ad, whatever, speak to the core values of your readers?
Maybe you can inject a sneaky call to action in the title?
Nick Kolenda, psychology writer, titled one of his books, “Imagine reading this book.’
Then there’s, Trust, by Hernan Diaz - Ok, that’s another obvious one.
The classic ‘Oh the Places You’ll Go’, by Dr Seus, is a call to action to imagine our future.
And, if you want something more advanced, check out Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary. There’s more going on here (I’ll do a breakdown of it soon),
but the book description speaks to a core fear - the fear of loneliness.
Can you see how this works?
Can you think of a way to apply it to your marketing?
Angie
P.S - #SorryNotSorry if you’ve got an ear worm now. Try imagining the mouthwatering smell of a bacon sandwich instead.