Building a Platform - Day 11 & 12 and Final Thoughts

Day #11

Don’t Drop the Ball Now. If you have gotten this far, take time to update your website, keep people informed on your My Space page, or Twitter your latest event. Let your targeted audience (chefs, lawyers, senior citizen groups) know what you are doing. Visit all those Internet communities you have joined and let them know what you are up to. Leave a comment on a fellow writer’s blog when they have a new book out. Review somebody’s book on Amazon.com. (Wouldn’t you like somebody to do that to your book?)

As you learn new skills, like doing a TV interview, let people know about it on your website. Polish old skills. (You can always improve.) You should have learned a hundred great writing techniques and mistakes to avoid in that writing group you joined. (We can all learn from other’s mistakes.)

Update your short, one-paragraph biography often, so when someone is doing publicity on you (or you are sending out your own Press Release) you have the latest news on yourself at hand. Something you did in college probably won’t interest anybody five or ten years later, but guest blogging on someone else’s blog is Big News. The fact you wrote poems in high school isn’t very interesting. The fact you interviewed a fellow writer on your blog is exciting. Read other people’s biographies on their websites. You’ll spot the pro from the novice by what the pro leaves out.

Day #12

Go for the Gold. Once you have a book in print, try creating a video book trailer for your website. Hey! If you have done all the previous points, you can do the book trailer. It’s the toughest “new thing” out there, but other writers are doing them.

Tough love segment: Agents and publishers are looking for any excuse to say “no” to you and your manuscript. If you have most of these twelve bullet points under your belt, they are going to find it hard to turn you down. You show initiative and you follow through. That means they won’t have worry about expending time and money on a newcomer. (Let them spend their time and money when your efforts pay off and you have a Best Seller.) Do your homework now and maybe your publisher will spring for the book trailer later.

A Final Thought

You aren’t alone out there. There are plenty of people who are at the same level in their career as you, some a little further along, some even more of a newcomer than you. Writers today are learning that they need to learn these same silly skills to get themselves noticed. Why not you?

These bullet points are meant to give you a heads up in this business and to urge you learn them, try them, and to get your name plastered all over the Internet along with your terrific face. You have a vested interest in getting a book published and selling those books. You are also the best salesman of your work. Nobody knows you like you.

Use all these “platforms” to climb up to the top of the heap and shout your name from the rooftops. Each one will make you a better writer and more interesting to an agent or publisher.