I’ve maintained silence for long enough! Here’s what I’ve been doing:
PLANNING MY AUTHOR PLATFORM.
This blog is all about “building a better story,” and I’ve come to the realization that story is more than craft. Think about it. You can write perfectly crafted stories or articles or novels or poems, but what if no one reads them?
This is my story of presenting my work to the public.
I follow several blogs relating to writing and publishing. My go to is
Jane Friedman’s blog.
Jane Friedman.com
Helping authors flourish in the digital age, she provides wonderful insight into writing and publishing. Recently she brought subscribers a webinar with Tim Grahl, an expert in author platforms. I attended and have since purchased and read his book, The First 1000 Copies: The Step-By-Step Guide To Marketing Your Book.
Do I hear you groaning and grumbling out there?
“I haven’t finished my book…”
“I’m writing fiction… “
“I haven’t published yet…”
I thought the same things until I attended the webinar,
“Predictable Book Sales”
The 3 Step Framework to build a killer Launch platform
and learned: if you plan on publishing and finding an audience to read (and hopefully buy) your work, NOW is the time to start working on your author platform.
The webinar offered participants a system that works and is “repeatable and predictable.” That caught my eye. In grad school, we learned about research. Good research is repeatable and the results will be predictable. It sounded logical to me, but would this system work to sell a series of thrillers set in Mexico against the greed and violence of organized crime? We’ll see!
I’ve committed to developing this system for my future book sales starting now.
Grahl calls this a Connection System. He contends that you as an author need to connect with two kinds of people: Fans and Influencers and build relationships with them so that they become involved with what you’re doing. It’s his definition of marketing: creating long-lasting connections with people. and, Grahl adds—“being relentlessly helpful.”
Authors that focus on relationships and help are the successful ones.
I hope everyone isn’t cringing with the mental images of long hours spent on Facebook, Google+, Linkedin and Twitter. I have scant tolerance for social media! (Okay, okay, I love Pinterest and my character, JadeAnne, now has her own board.) Happily, I’ve learned social media is just a tool in the marketing toolbox, not the Connection System itself.
The Connection System is built on three key concepts and I’ll talk about these and more in future posts as I document my platform building progress and finish The Hydra Effect Book 2: Coyoacan A JadeAnne Stone Mexico Adventure.
When I submit to agents and publishers, I’ll have my platform in place—¡Ojalá!
Connect with me for the journey!
Building a Better Story 