I've never liked being a salesperson, yet as a writer we are in fact, salespeople. You can't get around it. We sell ourselves as credible sources for information. But, we also sell our ideas and our writing itself. If you've ever thought "Why should anyone read my stuff?" You can understand the relationship between sales and writing (even before publishing comes into it). We want readers to buy into our writing, to be believe what we write, take it seriously. So, we have to sell it.

The following comes from: How Stuff Works - http://money.howstuffworks.com/sales-technique1.htm

"The foundations of most modern sales techniques lie in five stages of action. These began in the 1950's and include:

Attention: You have to get the attention of your prospect through some advertising or prospecting method.

Interest: Build their interest by using an emotional appeal such as how good they will look to their boss when they make this deal that will save the company thousands of dollars!

Desire: Build their desire for your product by showing them its features and letting them sample or test-drive it.

Conviction: Increase their desire for your product by statistically proving the worth of your product. Compare it to its competitors. Use testimonials from happy customers.

Action: Encourage the prospect to act. This is your closing. Ask for the order. If they object, address their objections. There are then many variations of closing techniques that can help get the business. "

It's not too hard to see how that applies to our writing. Think of copywriting, fiction writing or even writing an instruction manual. The first thing you need to do is pull them in, catch their attention. You do this by surprising them, perking their curiousity, giving them what they want or showing them you have what they need. Whichever works for the writing you are doing. In website reviews a catchy headline is everything. If it's a book you need a great opening line. Magazine articles use headlines and highlighted phrases in the article.

Interest, desire and conviction sort of roll into one theme, keeping your readers reading. How do you pull them through your writing? Some may only read the catchy beginning and then skim to the end for the conclusion. Keeping their interest through the middle is the real trick. This is where your writing style comes in. Don't let them stop reading, keep providing content they need, want and must have. Keep the writing lively rather than droning on.

Then, as with any good sales pitch, you want them to take action. If you are writing fiction you want them to leave the world you created feeling they have left something of themselves behind when they read that last word. If you are writing copy for sales you want them to understand how important the product is. If you are explaining how something works you want them to feel confident enough to proceed and use the product. Even if your only purpose is simple entertainment, you want them to buy that from you. In order for it to be bought, you have to sell it.

"When I'm stuck, I imagine my best friend in a tough situation. 'You've got to help me,' my friend (character) says. 'I can't get out of this without you.' 'Sorry, I'm just not in the mood,' is not an option. 'I'd rather scrub the kitchen floor,' is not an option. I have to help my friend. I probe, ask questions. How did you get where you are? Where would you like to be? What tools do you have to help you?" - Camille Minichino

"Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work." - Stephen King

"Technique alone is never enough. You have to have passion. Technique alone is just an embroidered pot holder." - Raymond Chandler

A list of quotations, witch related. What Witch quotations have you come across?

"Rebellion is like witchcraft. That's what it is, it's like witchcraft." - Missouri State Rep. Jean Dixon, on labeling "offensive music". USA Today, March 20, 1990

"It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians." - Pat Robertson, The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 1993

"After ages of transmitted prejudice and silly teaching, only one person in twenty puts any real heart into the harrying of a witch. And yet apparently everybody hates witches and wants them killed. Some day a handful will rise up on the other side and make the most noise _{perhaps even a single daring man with a big voice and a determined front will do it} and in a week all the sheep will wheel and follow him, and witch-hunting will come to a sudden end." - Mark Twain, "The Mysterious Stranger", 1922

During many ages there were witches. The Bible said so. The Bible commanded that they should not be allowed to live. Therefore the Church, after eight hundred years, gathered up its halters, thumb-screws, and firebrands, and set about its holy work in earnest. She worked hard at it night and day during nine centuries and imprisoned, tortured, hanged, and burned whole hordes and armies of witches, and washed the Christian world clean with their foul blood. Then it was discovered that there was no such thing as witches, and never had been. One does not know whether to laugh or to cry.....There are no witches. The witch text remains; only the practice has changed. Hell fire is gone, but the text remains. Infant damnation is gone, but the text remains. More than two hundred death penalties are gone from the law books, but the texts that authorized them remain. - "Bible Teaching and Religious Practice," Europe and Elsewhere -Mark Twain

Wicked Witch of the West: I'm melting, melting! Who would have thought a little brat like you could destroy such beautiful wickedness.

Wicked Witch of the West: I'll get you my pretty, and your little dog too.

Bedevere: What makes you think she's a witch? Peasant: Well she turned me into a newt! Bedevere: A newt? Peasant: I got better. Crowd: Burn her anyway!

-Monty_Python_and_the_Holy_Grail

Bedevere: And how do you burn witches? Crowd: With more witches! Bedevere: No,no,no...And why do witches burn? Peasant: Because...there made...of...wood? Bedevere: Precisely, so how do we know if she's made fo wood? Peasant: Biuld a bridge out of her! Bedevere: Ah, but can you also not build a bridge out of stone?

-Monty_Python_and_the_Holy_Grail

WITCHES: The weird sisters, hand in hand, Posters of the sea and land, Thus do go about, about: Thrice to thine and thrice to mine And thrice again, to make up nine. Peace! the charm's wound up.

-Macbeth, I, iii

When, however, one reads of a witch being ducked, of a woman possessed by devils, of a wise woman selling herbs, or even a very remarkable man who had a mother, then I think we are on the track of a lost novelist, a suppressed poet. . . indeed, I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman. - Virginia Woolf

I will show you a love potion without drug or any witch?s spell: If you wish to be loved, love. ~ Hecato

Whether they admit it as much or denied it, they all without exception in the depths of their hearts believed that there was a doctor, or a herbalist, or some old witch of a woman somewhere, whom you only had to find and get that medicine?to be saved?. It just wasn't possible that their lives were already doomed. However much we laugh at miracles when we are strong, healthy and prosperous, if life becomes so hedged and cramped that only a miracle can save us, then we clutch at this unique, exceptional miracle and--believe in it! -Alexander Solzhenitsyn, 1968

From the Bible:

Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. (Ex. 22:18)

Regard not them that have familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards, to be defiled by them. (Lev. 19:31)

All that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord. (Deut. 18:12)

I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers. (Mal. 3:5)

Thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness. (Acts 13:10)

Originally posted to 'BackWash: Where the Wild Things Are' newsletter, February, 13, 2003.