Jeff Davidson: To Authors Who Exaggerate: Stop!

Guest Post by Jeff Davidson

World's Greatest Book Author

What a terrible web we weave… the temptation among aspiring authors to embellish their marketing literature with grandiose claims is overwhelming. I’ve seen newbies whose credentials are still developing who are prone to make grandiose claims, especially on self-published books, such as, “The world’s leading…,” “One of the most popular…,” or “The #1 book on…”

Caution: use of absolute terminology such as best, first, most, most outstanding, and greatest are difficult to prove and generally are fallacious.

Put yourself in the shoes of others. If you speak professionally, is a bureau going to take a risk by submitting your material, strewn with superlatives, to a meeting planner who has perhaps seen and heard it all? Even with meeting planners who are relatively new in the position, the flags go up the moment they receive literature adorned with grandiose claims.

What about when you’re not employing absolute terms such as first or best, but your descriptive literature nevertheless come off as grandiose? Consider the following:

One of the most sought after authors…

One of the fastest rising stars in the industry…

Among the world’s leading authorities on…

Outstanding content…

Issues abound with this type of terminology as well because, on its face, the information is unsubstantiated. If you can succinctly answer the fundamental question, “according to whom,” then you might have something.

Did an industry magazine refer to you in such a way?

Do you hold a confirming trademark?

Does a professional association, in print, regard you as their industry guru?

Has your book actually appeared on the New York Times Best Seller list (and not as a one-day Amazon phenomenon that you orchestrated)?


About Jeff Davidson

Jeff Davidson

Jeff Davidson, the internationally recognized expert on work-life balance, holds the registered trademark as the Work-Life Balance Expert®. He is the author of several popular books including Breathing Space, Simpler Living, and The 60-Second Organizer. He is an Advisory Board Member on The Organized Executive, a monthly publication of Columbia Books.

In 2013, Jeff had eight books published in Chinese, including Simpler Living, The 60-Second Innovator, The 60-Second Organizer, The 60-Second Self-Starter, and Ten-Minute Guide to Project Management.

Jeff Davidson is on the web at http://www.BreathingSpace.com.

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. -- .

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Comments

  1. Jeffrey Davidson . . .

    Your editorial about authors was not well-received and a great way to make enemies. I was insulted by your tone and I’m an unpublished author and do not plan to say anything like that to my readers in November when my book comes out.

    So what if authors exaggerate a little or a lot to get some attention for their book? It is a dog eat dog book world with 1,000,000 books published each year. What does it hurt except the reader might buy their book and think them smarter than the last book they read? Everyone does it! TV stations and TV shows, coffee houses do it and even doctors and hospitals do it. I have heard them. Why don’t you write to all of them too?

    You’re too negative of a person. I don’t follow negativity!

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