Writing and Publishing News

You hear/read a lot about the importance of establishing and building on a platform. What exactly is a platform?

Your platform makes a case for your credibility as the author of your particular book. A platform involves your way of attracting readers. You can trace your bookselling success (or lack of) directly to your amazing platform (or lack of). If you have a valid and convincing platform, people will buy your book. If not, maybe not. For example, if you are thought of as an expert in your field, people will have more trust in you and will be more apt to purchase your book on the topic of your expertise.

A platform is your reach—how far and wide you are known by your potential readers. For example, if you have a large readership for your blog, newsletter, articles and other books in a specific genre, you can be fairly certain that you will be able to sell a number of copies of your new book in this genre.

A platform includes your realm of influence. If you have a large following of people who use your products or services, who attend your lectures and who believe in the advice you offer, for example, you are most likely influencing many of them and they will trust you enough to purchase your book on this topic.

Sometimes a platform comes naturally—you sort of grow a platform without realizing it is happening. You develop it as a matter of your life course as a PE teacher and fitness advocate, a longtime author of genre fiction, a parent of an autistic child and a widely-known activist for mainstreaming kids with disabilities or a flower shop franchise owner and public speaker at floral trade shows, for example. But most of us with platforms must continually build on them in order to remain visible to upcoming generations and to keep up with technological and other advances in our industries/areas of interest.

Other times we must build our platforms from scratch. The retired bank president who sits down to write her first book focusing on child-related charities abroad, may be known in the banking industry, but will have to play catch-up when it comes to establishing a platform on the subject of her book. The grammar school teacher who decides to write a children’s book has a ways to go in order to create credibility as a children’s book writer if she has no background experience. The foundation of her platform is the fact that she is a teacher. But she will have to build from there.

There are many steps to building a platform. I write about how to do this a lot. I speak about it. I frequently outline various steps to help authors recognize the cornerstones of their natural platforms and to continue building on them. A platform is such an important aspect of authorship that there should be more platform support systems for authors.

With this in mind, I’ve decided to start an online, on-demand Author’s Platform-Building Course. I’d like to hear from those of you who would be interested in working directly with me on building your personal author’s platform. Leave your comment here or email me at PLFry620@yahoo.com.

What if you come up with a great book idea? You receive encouragement from friends, continue to nurture your idea and become very attached to it. Then you do some research—even write a book proposal—and the results don’t look so good. You discover that your great idea maybe isn’t so great. There seem to be a few flaws—even red flags. But you really, really want to write and produce this book. It’s your dream. Maybe you can make it work, despite the obvious obstacles, such as there being no real evidence that there is a market for this book.

Thousands of authors go ahead and produce their dream books even though there is little hope that it will come anywhere close to fulfilling their dreams. I suppose we should celebrate and congratulate those authors who demonstrate a strong sense of commitment to their projects. But I have a problem doing so when the author obviously harbors unrealistic expectations. The author who does impress me is the author who has the courage NOT to write or produce a book that is not wanted or needed—that is not a good business prospect.

I know such an author. She came up recently with an idea for a book and became excited about the possibilities. She told friends about it and they encouraged her 100 percent and even offered to contribute. At that point, she contacted me asking how to start the process. I said, “First, do a little preliminary research and see if there’s anything else out there like your book idea. If so, consider what your book could bring to the table—what would make it different, better?”

This hopeful author did the research and discovered that there were quite a few books on this topic—really a perceived glut of them. She could not come up with an angle that she thought was unique enough and still marketable, so she decided not to pursue it at all.

While some people would say that she is a quitter, I say that she made a smart business move.

It’s hard to stop the forward motion on a project that your heart is in. But it would be harder to go ahead with it and fail because it was the wrong book at the wrong time.

Folks, be realistic when you decide you want to write a book or that you want to publish the book you’ve been writing. How are you going to sell your run-of-the-mill book on dieting or healthy eating when you are not known in the field and there are hundreds of other books to choose from? How many people will actually be interested in reading your memoirs? If your book isn’t likely to be a big crowd-pleaser, you probably won’t be able to interest an agent or a publisher. If you decide to go the pay-to-publish route, you will have a very difficult time making sales on your own. Bookselling is tremendously intense and difficult work.

So, fellow author, if you have a book in mind. Stop the forward motion on it immediately. Sit down and spend the next few days writing a book proposal. This process will help you to determine whether you have a legitimate audience for your book or not. It will introduce you to your potential audience and show you where and how to locate them and approach them. You’ll discover what you need to do in order to establish a strong enough platform to represent your book to publishers, agents and readers. It will also help you to more appropriately focus your book idea.

If you need help writing a book proposal, it is available through my online, on-demand book proposal course.
http://www.matilijapress.com/course_bookproposal.htm

What if you have a published book, but it is just not doing well in the marketplace? I wrote a book for you. It’s called, The Author’s Repair Kit: Heal Your Publishing Mistakes and Breathe New Life Into Your Book. http://www.matilijapress.com/author_repairkit.html

Contact me for editorial assistance with your book proposal or your book manuscript. PLFry620@yahoo.com. Learn more about me and my work at http://www.patriciafry.com While there, be sure to sign up for the FREE booklet, 50 Reasons Why You Should Write That Book.

How often have you heard that a nonfiction author must position him/herself as an expert? What does this mean? It means that, as the author of a nonfiction book, you need to earn yourself some credibility as an expert in your field so that your readers will turn to you (and your book) for the information and answers they seek.

How do you do that? First, you write a book on a topic you know well—a subject in which you have experience and interest. To some consumers, once you produce a book on the topic, you are already considered an expert. But what will make readers choose your book rather than others on the topic. The fact that it is new is a plus for some. Maybe they’ve read all of the other books on the market about raising bunnies for show and they are thrilled to find a new one from a different author with a fresh perspective.

But how will you continue to attract readers? By becoming known to those interested in reading about this topic. How?

When you are looking for a book on a particular topic, how do you choose one book from all the rest on the shelf or at amazon.com? First, you probably seek certain information, so you want to make sure that the book you select has a strong section on the material you are searching for. Let’s say that you want a good book on self-publishing. And you are especially interested in information on setting up your publishing company—what steps to take when. You will check the table of contents and the index to make sure that subject is covered.

Next you will probably look for an author’s name you recognize. You might not even know much about this author other than the fact that his name is familiar—you’ve heard it and seen it numerous times. For most people, this is highly important—name recognition does sell books. Think about it, you’ve bought books because you recognized the author’s name, right?

So how does an author develop a level of familiarity that will cause people to purchase his or her books above the others? Again, think about where you hear about the experts in your field of interest.

• You hear their names mentioned at meetings, gatherings, shows, etc. related to the topic.

• You see their names on articles in the publications you read.

• You may read their blogs and subscribe to their newsletters.

• You see their book reviewed and/or recommended at the sites you visit.

• You attend their lectures at conferences related to your area of interest.

• You see their endorsements on the covers of other books on the subject.

• You notice their interviews at other blog sites.

• Other experts mention their works in their articles and lectures.

• Their name shows up in your Google Alerts quite often.

All of this, along with a measure of experience and knowledge of the subject is what can position an author as an expert in his or her field. And these are the things you should be doing even before you complete your nonfiction book in order to position yourself as an expert in your field or area of interest.

You don’t have to be the best and most knowledgeable rabbit breeder around in order to sell your book on the topic. What you do need is enough experience and information to write a credible book on the subject, and a slant that others may not have thought of. And you need to go to work becoming known to your audience. Do you have any questions?

I know one question that always comes up: “What about fiction? How do I become known in my genre so that people will purchase my mystery or science fiction or historical fiction?”

So often fiction writers ignore everything said or written about book promotion, saying that “promotion is for nonfiction only.” WRONG! Take another look at the bulleted list above. If you exchange the word “fiction author” for “expert” and “stories” for “articles,” you will reveal your promotional plan of action for your novel:

• Become known among your readers.
• Submit stories to a wide range of publications/sites.
• Establish a blog and/or a newsletter.
• Get your book reviewed many times over.
• Ask for recommendations at a variety of sites.
• Go out and speak/perform on behalf of your book.
• Give endorsements for other authors’ books.
• Seek out interview opportunities.

Successful authorship depends on much more than good writing skills. If you are planning a book, download my booklet—50 Reasons Why You Should Write That Book and read it from cover to cover. It’s FREE. http://www.patriciafry.com

Have you noticed how short fiction book titles are becoming and how long some nonfiction titles are? I am reviewing Dan Poynter’s book, Self-Publishing Manual (volume 2), How to Write, Print and Sell Your Own Book Employing the Latest Technologies and the Newest Techniques.

Sure is a long title, but this seems to be the wave of the future for nonfiction books. Of course, generally, for nonfiction, there is a title and a subtitle. So many newer books, however, have titles that would not stand alone without the subtitle and the entire title/subtitle must be stated or read in order for the potential consumer to understand the focus and scope of that book.

Take Mark Levine’s book, The Fine Print of Self-Publishing. It really, really helps one understand what this book is about when he or she knows the subtitle, which is, The Contracts and Services of 45 Self-Publishing Companies—Analyzed, Ranked and Exposed. (This is a book I recommend often, by the way.)

Penny Sansevieri has a pretty hot and reasonable title with Red Hot Internet Publicity. But her subtitle explains her book to a greater degree. I believe her subtitle (along with her name as she is widely known in this area or expertise) will help to sell this book: An Insider’s Guide to Marketing Your Book on the Internet.

I guess that Brent Sampson (or his publisher) didn’t think that the title, Sell Your Book on Amazon, was enough. So they tacked on this subtitle for clarity: The Book Marketing COACH Reveals Top-Secret “How-to” Tips Guaranteed to Increase Sales for Print-on-Demand and Self-Publishing Writers.

Even my next book has quite a title (thanks to the publisher at Allworth/Skyhorse). Promote Your Book, Over 250 Proven, Low-Cost Tips and Techniques for the Enterprising Author.

The award for the longest book title goes to Nigel Tomm for a book having a 650 word title. Don’t worry, I’m not going to repeat that title here.

And then there are short titles—mostly used for books of fiction. Stephen King has a new book called Ur. But several authors over the years have used even shorter titles—yes, one letter titles such as C, K, and H, etc.

If you need help choosing a title for your book, consider using Lulu’s title analyzer: http://www.lulu.com/titlescorer/index.php.

Rachel Gardner, in her March 3, 2010 blog post has some interesting and, perhaps, useful ideas for choosing a title for your book. http://cba-ramblings.blogspot.com

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