August 2, 2009

Creating a Writer's Platform

Writing has become the epitome of entrepreneurial enterprise. If you aren’t already a household name as a published author, you need to start figuring out how you are going to get your name out into the world—before you’re published.

Writing a good story no longer suffices. Don’t get me wrong--you still need to learn and apply craft and write a damn good story. But your book, no matter how wonderfully written, will never move from your desk to bookstore shelves until you can create a demand. This is accomplished by creating a visible presence within the writing world.

As writers, how can we create a platform to launch our writing careers? There is no formulaic answer. You have to find the method that works for you. I chose to do author interviews in my genre. I’ve done columns for several years at print and electronic publications. I've had the opportunity to interview a variety of authors, from debut novelists to veteran New York Times bestselling authors.

I originally did the interviews for a now defunct e-zine, but moved my work to my website, bringing my followers with me. I get added mileage by linking my interviews with the author’s website. I allow each author to use my interviews on their sites in exchange for linking back to mine. I have no problems riding their coat tails. I created opportunities to learn more about my future competition, followed the trends in my genre and established a network of authors that I can turn to when needed during my writing career. In addition, I now have relationships with publicists within both large and small publishing houses. All that’s left is to finish my manuscript and call in the markers.

That's my plan toward name recognition. What are you doing to make your presence known?

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1 Comments:

At August 23, 2009 at 3:27 PM , Blogger Jessica L. Brooks (coffeelvnmom) said...

I began this writing journey a few months ago and am researching the whole platform thing quite a bit. So far I have joined twitter (great connections to agents and their opinions, blogs, ect.), blogger, and SheWrites. I've also created a "fanpage" on facebook which won't mean much for a while I am sure...but I wanted there to be a way for people to find me and share my page on there somehow. I'm in the process of re-doing my personal website to be more of a business platform.

 

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