Whether you are preparing to launch your new book, still writing the manuscript, or marketing your book a year after its release, you can’t ignore the importance of your author platform for your success as an author. Today you need to demonstrate to a publisher you have built a big enough platform to sell a sufficient number of books before they’ll offer you a contract. And if you pursue self-publishing, it is even more important. How else will readers find your book? An author platform isn’t measured by the number of followers on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram, but on the size and scope of readers who know you already and are interested in what you have to say. Taking stock of your efforts to attract readers will help you determine where to put your efforts into growing your customer base. Building your author platform requires a consistent, focused effort to make incremental improvements in extending your reach through expanding your social networks. Whether you use an Excel or Google spreadsheet, or a whiteboard on your wall, create a grid for assessing your current author platform. Channels: Make a list of all the ways you communicate with (potential) readers and places where you can be reached by someone who is trying to connect with you Mailing address Email address Agent’s contact information Publisher’s contact information Publicist’s contact information Website Blog Newsletter Amazon profile Goodreads profile LinkedIn profile Facebook Page and/or personal profile Twitter profile Instagram profile Pinterest profile Previous publications…
Much of the labor of creating a snappy and engaging blog is visible to the outside world – your carefully crafted content, your punctual updates, your original style and creative voice… But under all of that outward cultivation lies a rushing river of information, a spring of data that you need to tap. Who is visiting your site? How long are they staying? How did they get… [Read More]
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Journalistic nonfiction makes an unspoken promise to readers: it doesn’t just tell a tremendous story, it forces readers to question and examine current cultural practices and societal values. A strong journalist knows how to write articles that do more than just expose the facts. Many call it an ethical code, but I call it a mark of skill, developed over the years by knowledge of… [Read More]
Whether you check the news on your smartphone first thing in the morning or you’d rather read the phone book than attend to anything on such a tiny screen, there’s one thing you’ve got to keep in mind – potential readers are looking at your site on mobile even if you’re not. In the same way that your website needs to be accessible to many… [Read More]
Martin Sweeney from Homer, NY, has written a captivating account of three native sons who played pivotal roles in Abraham Lincoln’s presidency and the United States’ history. [Martin Sweeney, Lincoln’s Gift from Homer, New York: A Painter, an Editor and a Detective, McFarland & Company, Inc., 2011.] The painter, Francis Carpenter, brushed “The First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation before the Cabinet”—the iconic image of… [Read More]
If you are an author who seeks an agent or publisher, you know that it is important to have an audience platform. What’s an audience platform? Historically we think of the soapbox a speaker stood upon at a busy intersection of streets hawking one’s ideas or wares. Print advertisers have long based their rates on the size of their circulation, or the “reach” of the… [Read More]