Creating a Platform

Creating a Platform with Heart Passion and Profitability
Alissa Lukara
www.ridinggrace.com

March 6th, 2010

Notes:

Publishing industry is going through much change; shifting more and more to Internet

Writer’s Platform:

1) Developing Sphere of Influence
a. What you bring to agents and publishers to help you get accepted
2) Do during years before your book comes out
(BEST TIME IS TO START BUILDING PLATFORM 3 YEARS BEFORE YOUR BOOK COMES OUT – if possible)
a. Need name recognition to publish with mainstream publisher
i. Also true for small or medium-sized publishers
1. The greater name recognition you have the better for any publisher
3) Single most important factor for both novelists and non-fiction
a. Some agents/publishers won’t even consider you without a platform
4) Publishers won’t do it for you
a. Why is a mystery
i. Big books get promote but they are taking a chance on unknowns (the books which make it make up for the books that don’t).
5) Most writers are not extroverts. Often they like their solitude and have a resistance to promotion.
6) Helps to have a book out
a. But can still get published if you have a following by the time you submit your book
i. A Quality Writer with a following can actually get published as a ghost writer

Aside: (key-provide the gift of your message – rather than direct selling -- Rule of advertising – people won’t remember a message until they have seen it 5 to 7 times)

Things to put in a platform:

1) What you’ve already had published (short stories)
2) Teleconferences (make free)
a. Tools: see handout


How to Start:
1) Decide your target
a. Fantasy Readers
i. Adult
ii. Young Adults
iii. Other Fantasy Writers
2) Can commit only fifteen minutes a day if that’s all you have
a. The important thing is to start doing something on it
3) Connect with your target audience
a. Income-producing activities
i. Provide and lead workshops
ii. Speaking engagements
iii. Online courses
4) Once you’ve specified your target, your platform will get you more media attention -> or at least that’s the goal
a. To get your message out
i. Message –
Rules of Fantasy? Research? About fantasy? About fantasy writing:
1. With examples?
a. - My short stories.
b. Chapters from book.
c. Link to Tania’s – advertise her books on my website?
2. Possible Parts?
a. World Building;
b. Fantasy Characters
c. Plots in fantasy? – coupled with characterization?
d. Theme? – don’t preach
e. Concept?
f. Heroes Journey?
g. Input from other fantasy writers – (blog)
i. Their experiences
3. Editing
a. Links to agents
b. Info on publishers
4. Reviews
a. Mine and theirs
b. Volunteer Reviews
i. Try to get them to reciprocate
5. Writing Conferences
6. My pitch
7. Mutual linking with other fantasy writers
8.



Aside: Takes a lot of work and commitment to build a platform. Also, almost every bit of building a platform takes author out of their comfort zone.

Her experience:
She wrote some kind of service book. Created a website (lifechallenges.org) to help people with whatever challenges they had related to the issue her book was about. (helping them make it through hard times). Instead of using the website for a sales tool, she used it to build a following by providing this service. Lifechallenges.org was already a 800-page website before her book got published. Spun off into interviews and media coverage: (They came to her.)
Her website was a non-profit company. When economy went sour, she lost her funding and had to shut it down.
(eg. Costs for a website: hosting, email list, corporate taxes, spam protection).

5) Platform grows and evolves as author does.
a. Options – fifteen minutes at a time
b. Or whole thing at once
(My point of view – somewhere in the middle).
6) She recommends an inside-out approach: From
a. Deepest inside part of you
b. Think about how it benefits your target audience – Other Fantasy Writers and Fantasy Readers:
i. Networking with other writers
1. Making friends
2. Learning from other writers
3. Communal Help for Fantasy Writers
4. Mutual Linking
5. Characters
6. Relate to D&D?
7. Provide other writers a place to plug their book
8. Gain access to interviewers
9. Learn and share about agents
10. Learn and share about:
a. Contests
b. Magazines
c. What’s in and what’s out

ii. (Not just you).
c. Think about passion that drew you to writing the thing you write. Questions to ask yourself – (Note – these seem more geared for non-fiction than fiction).
i. What was the key idea that came to you? – hobbits->trolls; extrapolation from Tolkienesque novel
ii. From your passion, what makes you and your story stand out from all the others? What makes it unique?
1. Different, unique characters; Different roles for standard characters. Unique plot.
iii. What does your writing promise readers?
1. Entertainment, fun, escapism, desire to be one of the characters and live in that fantasy world
iv. Who would this book help? (Non-fiction mostly?)
v. Who would the book entertain? (Primarily fiction?)
1. Fantasy Readers
a. Adults
b. Young Adults
c. Family
d. WDC
i. Fantasy Keep
ii. Chatterbox Reviews

vi. What does target audience need help with?
1. Getting published as fantasy writers
vii. What problem or conflict does your book solve?
d. Need to create your own brand or niche
i. Focusing on the passion that drove you.
1. Fantasy Writing, Reading, and getting published
7) Will live with your platform for several years – follow passion and not logic
8) Decide on a name for your platform
a. Friends of Fantasy
b. Not your own name unless your name already has name recognition
c. Optional – Name of book.
d. Or use descriptive phrases geared for search engines – keywords
i. Tool – Wordtracker
1. Can pay for just one day ($10)
a. Can search for the most popular keywords and phrases that search engines will pick out; what people type in the most when using Google; compared with other phrases
ii. Another tool: alexa.com
1. Rates all websites in terms of search engine rankings

Platform Tools:

1) Internet – where most platform building takes place (mostly website)
a. Takes time and energy but not that expensive
i. Eg. – Twitter, Facebook and maybe YouTube

Website:

Your Home base. Won’t change dramatically (meaning home page?) Where you focus your passion.

Tool: For hosting – Recommends godaddy.com; inexpensive; also has templates

Wordpress

1) Ways to host websites:
a. Something called something like “alligator – something”? Look for on handout.
2) Googlesites – free webhosting tools

What she has on her website:

1) Home page - A
2) Bio - A
3) Book description
a. With an excerpt
4) Event listing: Where she gives:
a. Talks
b. Book-readings
c. Radio Interviews
d. Television Interviews
e. Workshop listing
f. Any and everything on her calendar related to promotion
5) Places she sells books:
a. Can include Amazon?
i. Mentioned the possibility of becoming an Amazon affiliate
6) Her contact information - A
7) A Press Page
a. Containing reviews of her book
b. The presses’s interviews of her
8) Downloadable Press Kit
9) Picture of herself - A
10) Other stock photos: See handout for tools. - B
11) Need a way to capture email addresses (of people interested in you or your subject)
a. Offer something free (think of what benefit will get from your choice – what they need)
i. Free ebook?
ii. Free articles?
b. To manage an e-letter list:
i. Services (have to pay for) to use for this are listed in handout.
1. (She doesn’t know how to prevent spam however.)
a. Eg. Mailchimp (handout) – supplies 300 to 500 emails sent out for free; pay after that for over 500
ii. Need to give recipients choice whether to opt-in or not
iii. Need a good statistics tool
1. Keeps track of every thing on your website surfers click on and also what times
12) Put a sample of an email newsletter on website.(For fiction as well as non-fiction).
13) Teleconferences: (that people can listen to at any time).
14) Links to other websites:
a. Usually mutual – they provide link to you and you to them
Note: Something author should know:
(With linking, can use google to check how popular a website is – by a ranking google gives depending on how many hits websites get. The idea of linking is to try to gradually get links of higher and higher rated websites – those that are the most popular. The more popular they are the more people will see their link to you. I’m pretty sure the rankings go from 1 at the lowest to 10 at the most popular. My (Dave’s) recommendation is to always try to get mutual links with websites with rankings 1 or 2 higher than yours. Then as you grow, you can keep adding higher ranked websites to link to. ((Plus, the more popular your site becomes, the more people will want to link with you)).

Mentions Scott Blum and Madisyn Taylor here from handout.


Other promotion ideas:

1) Write articles on Internet - B
a. Article Websites will post your articles on their site
i. These websites are in business of posting articles
1. Won’t charge you anything – but won’t pay either
a. Gives you name recognition
2) Recommend books of other authors in your genre - C
a. As close to your genre as possible
3) Do book reviews
a. (Publish on internet?) - C
4) E-letters (with your mailing list – already covered).
5) Online courses
a. You are the teacher
b. You can charge for them too
i. Can do less events this way
6) Can also do online surveys (eg. surveymonkey.com) ((She’s never done this – but said she knows it works))
a. Create a press release and include survey in it
i. (Or survey results?) not sure what she meant here
ii. Use in advertising
iii. Use in e-letters

Scott Blum:
Had brilliant idea. He wrote a book, and then in order to get a following of people wanting to read it, he wrote a prequel and dispensed it’s chapters once a week for free off his website. His prequel ended with a cliffhanger, that his audience had to buy his original book for to find out what happens.

Statistics tool: (she says this is by far the best one):
Googleanalytics – (and free); better than godaddy’s
Use to see who visits you, who links to you -> help you decide who you want to link too
Research tool


Blogs - B

The other major internet tool. (Search engines love them according to her).

Tool: Free blog tools:
1) wordpress.com – (see handout) - YES
a. has templates for blogs too
2) blogger.com

Another tool: salon.com
1) Let’s people publish their stories on it for free - ?
a. Agents looking for new talent check this site
i. Along with blogs too
1. Media may come to you

Websites are static. On the other hand, blogs are dynamic and interactive.
1) Have viral (?unsure what this word means) impact
2) Make connections
a. Networking with other authors
b. Generate interest in your writing
3) Twitter, Facebook
4) Idea: Be: - Plan
a. Engaging and Deep
b. Okay if you’re controversial
i. Creates interest in you
c. Make reader feel good about themselves
d. Make them feel like you like them
e. Make it seem like you’re talking to them


Key things for blogging:
1) She suggests writing up 1-3 months of blog entries at first. Blog services will allow you to submit all these ahead of time, and will post daily blogs when it is their day. (Could also do once a month just as well, or even once a week).
2) Anything you can do is better than nothing.
3) Remember this is public. What you write other people will see.
4) It is possible to filter out spammers
a. Thing called anti-spammers?
5) Can create a thing called (rf feeds).
Note – I knew what these were once, but can’t remember what they are now
6) Need to promote your blog yourself
a. Goal is to build as much traffic as possible
7) Post on other people’s blogs - B
a. Invite them to post on yours
i. Offer linking?
1. If very similar content to yours?
8) Some people get enough demand they can charge people to post in their blogs
9) Benefits of blogs:
a. People search them for new talent
b. They create networking opportunities
10) Can also be a guest blogger (?) – like huffingtonpost ( see handout?)

Example: Tim Ferriss (handout).
Wrote “4 Hour Workweek”. Spent $25,000 promoting it with little success.
Then he researched successful blogs, let them ask him about his topic, and accepted their offers to be a guest blogger on their blogs. Got on YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook, and ended up with a New York Times Bestseller.

11) Don’t make it just about you
a. Give benefits to reader
b. Provide something t hey want or need
i. Search engines love content rich

Example: Scott Sigler (handout):
A fantasy fiction writer: Shared his book giving away a chapter a week free; Gained a following and eventually ended up with a 5-book publishing contract – he is still giving away audiobooks for free

12) When book comes out you can do a “virtual” book tour;
a. Online on different peoples blogs and websites
i. Contact blogs and websites
1. Provide canned Questions and Answers ahead of time
a. Allow them to ask you 2 or three spontaneous questions that you will answer spontaneously in return
ii. Pass canned interview around
13) When posting somewhere, add content and link to Facebook or Twitter - ???
a. Comments to Facebook
b. Link to Twitter
i. Research feedback
ii. Mentor?

Aside: She says it’s a mystery how to be effective with Facebook. Suggests getting a mentor (she suggests under 25 – semi-humorously), and pay them for their help.

Aside: Twitter has caught on with sound-byte culture


Other ways to promote:

1) Public Speaking:
For:
a. Book readings
b. Interviews
c. Lectures for:
i. Businesses
ii. Other writers
iii. At conferences
d. Teaching Workshops
e. TV
f. Videos
g. Free Teleconferences
i. Record and send through internet
Tool: freeconferencecall. Com (handout) – 90 people max on call
h. Join:
i. Toastmasters? (handout) - B
ii. Classes (RCC?)
i. Novelists: Maybe tie in your genre with a real need for a service
i. Eg. – Doctor writing a medical book -? Gets speaking gigs at hospitals
ii. Look for tie-ins to corporations

Finally:

MOST IMPORTANT: Make platform “you” and let it grow organically