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Authors, Actors, and (Too Many?) Character Playlists
As a writer, when I’m creating characters, my favorite thing to do is build a “character profile” playlist for them. All through the drafting and editing stages, as I listen to music, I hear every song through that lens:
Could this work for my character?
At what point in their story?
What about their relationship with this other character?
It’s always been quite helpful to my writing process; just last week, while listening to a song I’d put on a particular character’s playlist, I had a revelation about a plot point I needed to set up in book one to prepare for a climactic moment in their book 2 arc. (Thank you, Florence + The Machine!)
This focus on characters — really digging into their profiles — reminds me of my days as an actor. When preparing for a role, I would often spend time pondering all sorts of questions about my character that had nothing to do with the events of the play. **
What is a typical leisure evening like for this character?
Are they more introverted or extroverted?
Do they lead with their heart, their head, or their gut?
What animal best represents their essence — and does that change when they’re under stress, or extraordinarily happy?
And, yes: **
What sort of music personifies their soul-story?
Again, none of this information would come up in the play; but each tidbit was a key unlocking another facet of my character’s personality. It was a way of getting inside their heads: channeling my empathy in order to tell that character’s story faithfully and truthfully.
Sanford Meisner defined acting as “living truthfully under imaginary circumstances”; the same definition could be applied to writing — with the added pressure of an entire world of people to portray, instead of just one character.
Hence the importance of character profiles — and some sort of system to keep all those identities organized!
Book Marketing’s Secret Ingredient
But the benefits of character profiles for authors don’t end with the writing process. Character profiles can also be a secret book marketing tool, informing and enriching authors’ promotional efforts.
You can also use clever ways to market your book by making a podcast. You can use tools like Podsqueeze to make automated show notes and turn them into blog posts and articles and get even more growth.
Think about books you’ve loved as a reader. Remember how invested you became in certain characters? Whether you loved them or loved to hate them, weren’t you fascinated by all that lay beyond the book’s pages? Wouldn’t you have welcomed the chance to learn MORE of their story — to dig into all those juicy character profile details?
By incorporating character profiles into your book marketing, you can give your readers that gift — and attract new readers who are eager for that connection with nuanced, believable characters.
Here are just a few starter ideas for using character profiles in book marketing:
- Character Introduction Week(s):
- Launch a social media (and/or newsletter!) campaign introducing your main characters — one character per day, OR really digging deep and giving each character a week.
- Share daily posts with:
- snippets from their backstory
- key personality traits
- likes & dislikes
- some of those fun details that don’t come up in the book, but help flesh out that character’s identity
- Use hashtags like #Meet<NAME>, #WhoIs<NAME>, and #CharacterSpotlight to build interest and excitement!
- This or That’ Polls:
- Engage followers by creating interactive polls where they choose preferences that match those of the characters.
- Example: “Would you rather explore a haunted forest or an abandoned castle? See what <NAME> picks in our latest adventure!”
- Behind-the-Scenes Character Secrets:
- Reveal lesser-known facts or secrets about a character in a series of posts or emails.
- Example: “Did you know? Before <NAME> became a secret agent, she was a champion volleyball player. Discover how those skills and experiences shape her spy journey in [Book Title].”
- Character Challenges:
- Invite followers to:
- “dress like your favorite character” for a day and share photos
- write a short scene from a character’s perspective
- submit fan art of their favorite character(s)
- Offer prizes such as signed copies of the book or exclusive merchandise for participating.
- Invite followers to:
- Character Interview OR AMA (Ask Me Anything):
- Encourage fans (via social media and/or email) to submit questions they have about the character’s life and decisions.
- Interview: Write a quick “interview”, either between two characters or between you (the author) and one of the characters, exploring their personality and/or their perspective on the events of the book.
- AMA: Schedule a live session where you, the author, answer questions in the voice of one of your characters.
BONUS: If your character profiles are particularly in-depth and juicy, you can package them nicely and use them as a reader magnet — that all-important free gift readers get when they sign up for your email list!
*Interested in harnessing the powers of generative AI in book marketing? Check out this post from Realm Chef, an AI tool that helps authors organize and market their books, about one of our key features: the automated story bible!
Make Book Marketing Fun Again
Let’s face it: for most authors, book marketing is a chore — tedious, if not downright painful. After writing a whole book, how can you work up the creative energy to produce MORE content? Where do you even begin?
That’s the magic of character profiles: you already have the content! As authors, we KNOW our characters; what we have to remember is that readers WANT to know those characters. Let’s put that character profile knowledge to good use in book marketing, building a community of engaged readers — and having FUN along the way!
