Writing.Com General Discussion

I know we segued from the original topic...


Google up Author Platform. Chuck Sambucino wrote a book on the subject. I blog once a month on how I build mine.

The jist as Chuck says, "you must give in order to receive."

You shouldn't post every day saying "buy my book." It's spammy and people will ignore it because you haven't given them a reason to invest in you.

No more than 10-20% of your posts should be sales oriented. The majority of your posts need to be helpful. Giving.

This is why I'm active on FB groups about writing and my genres. I post to answer questions or share info or be funny. On the writing groups, those are my peers (like here). I might pick up a few followers just for being helpful, but the focus in those places should be as peers.

People will then be disposed to listen to what I say. So when I post a link to my blog or FB page, they'll check it out, save it, read more of what I have to say.

Until one day, when I announce the good news about my book coming out, 1-10% of my followers will take action and buy it, maybe write a review.

At this point, I have a 100 FB followers and 3000 twitter followers. Not huge. More than zero. I'm actually more active in FB, so within actual groups I probably get a better response than I would on Twitter if I posted a call to action.

It's taken a year and a half to get that many. Another reason to start early.