Establishing an Author Platform

By Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig 

No matter if you’re published or unpublished, the idea of setting up an author platform from scratch can be really daunting.  It’s important to realize that establishing a platform and promoting a book is a marathon, not a sprint. 

If you’re not published (either traditionally or self-published):

Spend most of your time working on your book.  If you’re in a time-crunch and need to make the choice between setting up a platform or writing your book, you should be writing.

However, if you can spare the time … say fifteen minutes at a time … for establishing a platform, I’d encourage you to set up the basics.  Breaking these tasks into increments will help get them knocked out without ending up with a time suck.

Getting started: 

Have an email address for your writing business.  This should be your name and an email just for you.  You can get free emails from Gmail and from Microsoft, among other providers.

Set up a basic website, to create an online hub for you and your books. It’s a first step to being visible online. This website should be in your name, not the book’s title (you may write other books).  You can get free websites through WordPress (and can later transfer to a paid WordPress site, if warranted).  

The website should list a way to contact you (your email address, your social media addresses), your name, a little bit about you and the types of books you’re planning on writing.  If you have the time, you could blog once a week or every two weeks on this site, to bring in traffic and search engine attention.  More on what to blog about in this post by industry expert Jane Friedman: “What Should Authors Blog About?”.  Set up your blog to automatically post to Facebook or Twitter, if you’re there. 

It may seem silly to have a newsletter signup when you don’t yet have a book or readers, but the earlier you start, the better. MailChimp is free for up to 2,000 subscribers. 

Social media.  This is where you’ll want to pace yourself.  It’s fine to sign up on all the social media platforms (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, etc.), but only to reserve your name on these sites.  Later, you can find which one or two appeal most to you.  There’s no point in trying to post on a platform that you don’t enjoy because you’ll struggle to keep up with it. 

Again, sign up for these accounts with your name, not your book’s title.  Be sure not to spread yourself too thin—it’s very difficult to keep up with more than two social media accounts.  Use free tools like Hootsuite to schedule updates, if you’re pressed for time.

If you’re published:

All of the above, plus:

Amazon Author Central.  It’s important to set up your author page on Amazon.  When someone clicks your name next to your book’s title, it will take them to your page and show them all of your books in one place. You can add your bio, video content, connect your blog feed, and include photos. What’s more, you can use this portal to add editorial reviews to your book’s product page and check sales stats.
 

Do you have any other advice for setting up an author platform? What’s your favorite social media platform for connecting with readers? 

Elizabeth is the bestselling cozy mystery author of the Southern Quilting mysteries, Memphis Barbeque mysteries, and Myrtle Clover Cozy Mysteries for Penguin Random House, Midnight Ink, and independently. You can find her at Elizabethspanncraig.com . Elizabeth shares writing links on Twitter that later make it to the free search engine for writers, writerskb.com. 

You’re The Best Publicist for Your Book by Carolyn Howard-Johnson

Today the IWSG has the honor of hosting the master of book publicity, Carolyn Howard-Johnson.

You’re The Best Publicist for Your Book

or

Why Your Publisher Can’t Sell Your Book Without You

By Carolyn Howard-Johnson

If your name isn't King or Grisham or Roberts you've probably already figured out that you need to do a lot of publicity on your own. But did you know that your publisher can’t do it without you?

Sure you can hire a publicist. A big publisher might even assign one of their own to you, but you are the one who must show up for the signings. You are the one readers want to know about. And you are the one who is most passionate about your book.

I have a publicist friend who is also an author. He rightfully claims that he could never find a PR person who would do the same kind of job he does, including the time he spends on his own PR work. How could anyone argue with that? We all are our own best publicists, even if we hire someone else.

But what if we don't have the time or expertise?

We can learn to do it ourselves. After all, we are writers. We should be able to grasp the knack of how to write a media release.

But the best way to do it is to learn a lot about the marketing of books and then partner with expert publicists or people who can help you with specific projects like online book tours. And partnering with them in a way that won’t eat up your advance or cost you more than you’re likely to make on your book.

Here are some suggestions for preparing yourself to be the best publicity partner around.

1. Join organizations like IBPA (Independent Book Publishers Association) where you’ll learn to understand the world of publishing from every angle—your, that of your publicist and that of your publisher. And get the support you need along the way.

2. Subscribe to newsletters sent out my experts in the field of publishing. Dan Poynter, John Kremer, Penny C. Sansevieri, and one of my favorite publicity gurus Joan Stewart are all online resources for getting online information that isn’t rooted in myth and gossip. You’ll learn tons from my Sharing with Writers newsletter, too. Subscribe by sending a SUBSCRIBE message to CarolynHowardJ@AOL.com.

3. Take a class in public relations. The only way I know how to avoid drastic mistakes in choosing a class is to patronize your local college or attend writers’ conferences sponsored by universities.

4. One of the most frugal ways to learn a new skillset is to read. Most of those who publish free newsletters like the ones I mentioned above have books that will get you off on the right foot. Find mine here.

The next question is how do you find the best help with publicity possible.

1. Consider what you need and how much time you can put into it. Your budget may not accommodate a full-service publicist. You may not have the time to fully participate with all of those services.

2. If that’s the case, consider people who will work with you piecemeal like Penny Sansevieri. You may need an online book tour. I like Denise Cassino's book launch service for that. Contact her at dencassino@gmail.com . It shouldn’t be too expensive to get help when you do it in bits and pieces. And when you work with others, many of the contacts you get from your service will become contacts for the life of your writing career. Or you may need help writing your first release so you can do it yourself. That kind of help is available, too, from people like Mindy Philips Lawrence, mplcreative1@aol.com .

3. Before you hire anyone consider their Rolodex. I'm talking about a file of contacts that are real personal, working relationships with editors, radio hosts, etc. Ask what kind of publicity have they gotten for their other clients? Consider whether those contacts are people who might have an interest in a project like yours. A book publicist who has had mostly experience with mystery writers, deals mostly with books stores that dedicate themselves to stories about crime, and has a huge file of names of reviewers interested in psycho/thrillers probably won't be able to do you much good if yours is a literary novel. And vice versa.

4. As you have already guessed, you want someone who has clients similar to you. Check that out, but also check with the clients. Were they satisfied? If not, why not. Their expectations may have been different from yours. Further, if there were some gaps that you consider important, you may be able to negotiate with your newfound partner to include those services in the publicity package you are contracting for.

Am I speaking from experience? You betcha. And lukewarm results were not the fault of my publicist. She did a great job with what she had. She just didn't have what I needed! If you do your homework, you’ll be happier with your publicity campaign and your publicist will be able to help you reach your goals more quickly…and they’ll be happier with you.

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Carolyn Howard-Johnson is the author of so-called hard-to-promote genres (www.howtodoitfrugally.com/literary_books.htm) and of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers, because she likes helping other authors avoid the same promotion potholes she once fell into. She blogs frugal book promotion and great writing ideas at Sharing With Writers and read her multi award-winning Frugal Book Promoter and the just-released e-book version (2nd edition!) of multi award-winning The Frugal Editor where you’ll learn how to write killer query letters—to agents, publishers, feature editors and all the other gatekeepers who can make a difference for your book.