The following story showed up in my Facebook timeline. It reminded me how important relationships can be in developing a story. In this case, the story is about three wild animals who grew up together and now have had an incredible relationship for 15 years: an American black bear Baloo, a lion called Leo, and a Bengal tiger named Shere Khan.
Look how wonderful they look together. Doesn’t that just touch your heart? Doesn’t it make you go ahhhh, so sweet?
Sadly, in August, Leo the lion died after spending 15 years with his friends — after all three had been rescued from a drug dealer’s basement. The cubs grew up together at Noah’s Ark south of Atlanta, Georgia, and have always loved each other (even though they might have been natural enemies in the wild).
Now, what does this have to do with marketing books? For me, that’s simple: This is good storytelling, and you will always sell more books with a good story than you will sell by simply listing the book’s features or benefits.
Learn how to tell a good story and you will sell a lot more books. Start now!
Here are the three as younger cubs, enjoying a little swim together:
Here’s a commemoration video of Leo the Lion. RIP.
And here’s an Animal Planet story on the three friends:
About John Kremer
John Kremer is author of 1001 Ways to Market Your Books, the Relationships Matter Marketing program, and many other books and reports on book marketing, Internet marketing, social media, and book publicity. -- John Kremer on Book Marketing.
