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I’m glad you found that helpful. However, I would add that spam is in the eye of the beholder, and what your true fan sees as a fun post, a lesser fan might see as spam.
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One of the best parts of reviewing is when someone says they bought a book based on my review and really enjoyed it. I also think reviewing is a great way to connect with future readers.
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Excellent post! Still working on getting a proper book out, but I do have my own site and am practically everywhere online lol.
Reply Well done in getting the platform sorted before you publish! This is one area where it does help to have an unusual name like Raiscara – it’s pretty, and it makes you easy to find.
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So much to do but here are the steps. I’m saving this for when I’m able to throw myself wholeheartedly into it!
Reply Life has seasons, and I know you’re in a busy season right now. This will all be waiting when you’re ready for it.
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The Author Platform Marketing Challenge would be awesome! I’ve started on some of this, but I’m severely limited by my funding and expertise. (In other words: I’m broke and I don’t know what I’m doing. Help me. Lol)
Reply That’s why I created the Challenge – for people who know they need to build a platform, but have no idea where to start 🙂
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Thank you for sharing your wisdom. I love seeing people in the know give back to those of us just starting our journey. I’d love to have a review of 5k words of my newest fiction book (just finished last week). Why? Because it’s impossible to edit our own work, we’re too close to it and I believe the more eyes and feedback the better.
Reply Yes, it is impossible to see the faults in our own work! I find that myself – I read a blog post I published a few months back, and find missing words or a horrendous spelling mistake. And that’s just the easy stuff – it’s even harder for us to tell if we’ve been clear on things like character motivations, because we forget our readers don’t know our characters like we do.
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I’ve just finished my debut book (a series of thought-provoking Christian allegorical short stories) and am currently in the process of finding a publisher (fingers crossed!). As an author with loads of imagination and plenty of story ideas bubbling away in my fertile cranium, what I would love to do now is just drop everything else and start work on a followup book. But being very aware of the cold hard reality of what it takes to be a successful author in today’s risk-averse book publishing industry, I know that instead I have to be focussing for some time on building as influential an author’s platform as possible (so that a publisher will want to take my book on, and then after that has happened, in order to ‘spread the word’ about my book). Being a relative newbie at this game, I welcome all the help I can get, and this course sounds like a great way to develop this expertise!
Reply Good luck in finding a publisher!
One thing I’ve found is that most of the top publishers require authors to have a platform (which you know), and a literary agent. I’ve written a blog post about that: https://christianediting.co.nz/christian-literary-agents/
After you’ve read that, I suggest signing up to my email list because then I’ll send you a list of 150+ Christian fiction publishers. Of course, self-publishing is also an option, and a platform is vital for self-published authors as well.
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I’d love to win the giveaway. An edit could help boost readership in my first book. The marketing could give me a good shot in the arm for marketing.
Regarding your marketing ideas – I love the idea of Memes from my books. I use memes in my monthly newsletter, but I never thought about personalized memes based off my characters! Great idea!
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I’ve got one great novel out there, but greater still lessons learned about publishing, the things I did right and the things I did wrong. I think my platform needs a makeover, so that’s my “WHY.” One of the mistakes led to a less-than-ideal editing situation over my published novel, an important blogger’s review noting some big flaws.
So, my WHY for winning the 5000 word edit is my new work, which is in process. I’d like some direction and your take on my writing style, my weaknesses, and how to one-up myself.
I appreciate this article, and especially the note about connecting with bloggers. Definitely having connections is an important aspect. In my attempts to connect, back when my novel was published, I did not have a wide enough audience. Thanks for this article.
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What a great post! My debut launch in December went fairly well, but I did have some issues with my team not sharing memes. I didn’t expect to have “fans” make their own to be influencers, but hopefully with my next book that may happen. I keep working away at building my platform but it’s definitely a matter of consistency and hanging in there even when it feels like you’re calling in to the wind.
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Again…. I suck at Marketing. But on the upside, I do have the basic platform covered! So YAY!
Thanks for the UGC insight – I hadn’t thought of it that way.
I’d love to win the marketing challenge. I feel like I have several things going but need to pull it all together. This would be so helpful.
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