Tips for Growing Platform – Part II
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Last week, we established that “platform” is your sphere of influence. In today’s changing world of publishing, authors need to be entrepreneurs and help sell or entirely sell their own books. Publishers used to pay authors an “advance” on royalties. Many traditional publishers have dropped that practice, or offer extremely low advances, some as low as $1,000. Click to Tweet #amwriting #platform
The new “buzz word” is “discoverability.” How easily will readers find your book? That translates into how easily can readers find you? That’s what we’ll be talking about in this series. This week, I’ll be talking about blogging, but we’ll get into social media beginning next week.
You’re reading my blog, my newest, but not my first. Think of your blog as one section of your “platform,” your sphere of influence. You’re going to need at four major sections of your stage, with steps leading up to them, that can be smaller.
Blogging is not hard. Finding your “voice” in blogging may be a bit challenging for you. This is my sixth blog and the only one I currently maintain.
This is a WordPress blog. I pay a small fee to make it a website. I say “small” because it’s half as expensive as the website I had for my chocolate business from 2007–2014. That website had a full check-out cart and product catalog. I loved that website. It’s no longer in existence, because I shut the business down in 2014. My webhost had merged with a humongous webhost and when that happened, it became harder for me to manage. Plus, I was ready to close my business at that point and concentrate on writing. I haven’t regretted it.
I also have three–four Blogger sites. They were all free.
In 2014, I started this WordPress blog as a free blog with the Bouquet Theme. Since then, I’ve totally changed the coloring, plus adding my own touch to it.
If you Google blog programs, you’ll get lots of ideas of different places to check out for creating your own blog, but I would recommend either Blogger or WordPress. WordPress has been in the leader and known for its professionalism. There are also different review sites you can check out. I’m not going to post those here.
Blogging is a big step in establishing your platform. Agents and editors will check out your blog to see what you’re posting and how many followers you have. In growing your platform, it’s all about the numbers. Click to Tweet #amwriting #platform
What about you? Do you have a blog, or does the idea frighten you? Leave a comment and let me know.
Donna L.H. Smith 