3. MENTION ANY BOOKS YOU’VE WRITTEN, AND YOUR WEBSITE (BUT DON’T OVERSELL THEM) If you’ve written other books, especially on that subject, make sure to mention them. If they’re bestsellers or won awards, even better. If you’ve won multiple awards and you are finding that listing them all is becoming tedious, aim for brevity instead. Simply writing “John Smith is an award-winning author whose works include…” is more than enough to show your readers you know what you’re doing. If you have a website, a longer bio page, or anything else that helps promote your brand, then you should make sure you include it at the bottom of your bio (assuming this meets your goals). Again, you don’t want to brag here, so just be humble and simply put some- thing like: Find out more about John at www.johnsmithwriter.com. It’s simple and has a clear call to action. 4. DROP SOME RELEVANT NAMES, IF THEY’RE APPROPRIATE (WITHOUT BEING CRASS) Yes, name dropping can put off readers if it’s done wrong. But there is a right way to do it. For example, if you are relatively unknown, you can say something like, “The woman that Seth Godin called “the most important writer of our time” reveals to you the secrets of…” This way you are trading on Seth Godin’s reputation, and establishing your cre- dentials at the same time (assuming he said this). Also, if you’ve worked for or with very well-known people, name- dropping is not seen as bad; it’s seen as an effective signal to the reader of your importance and ability. What matters is that there is a reason that you are using someone else’s name that makes sense, and is not just a gratuitous name drop. 256 · ThE SCriBE METhOD