We Built This Platform

“Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.”

Stephen King

Way back when, careers were built by attracting readers to the “essence” of a writer.  As In “I’d buy anything from Suzi Writer” or “If (***’s) name is on the cover, my money’s on the counter.”  These people established a reputation for a certain style of writing, or their publisher established it for them.  Those days are a memory now, the value of a “platform” is still there, more important than ever. It’s just that now, we build our own.  But we don’t have to do it by ourselves.

The tools and guidelines to building a platform are abundantly available on line, even more now than when I took myself seriously enough as a writer to send a story off to Black Opal Books And the first piece of advice I didn’t pay enough attention to is:

DON’T WAIT UNTIL YOUR BOOK IS OUT TO ESTABLISH YOUR PLATFORM

Which is one of those statement that needs to be inscribed on the mug you use to convey your magic elixir of choice into your bloodstream.  That platform needs to go up long before the book release celebration and it needs to be strong enough to lift you up, plus all of your fellow writers.  The more we help each other the stronger we become individually.

WE ARE NOT ALONE (WANA) is the catch phrase of Kristen Lamb , whose blog not only inspires, it also chastises and drives us to perfection. If you’re not already reading her blog, I strongly suggest you start.

Also take a close look at Marketing For Romance Writers . If you don’t write romance you can still use the amazing information and support system.   They are open minded about any writing as long as you’re willing to share the love (support.)

In a nutshell, the suggested progression of platform building is: Establish a social media presence: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest.  Create your website and blog, which can be one and the same.  Link the blog to Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest.  Sign up to Triberr, join tribes.  When these building blocks for your platform are in place, your main effort beyond writing more wonderful books will be to regularly write a blog.  Yes, it is that easy.  And wouldn’t that be so much better than spending your precious writing time shoving books in people’s (virtual) faces?

I’m pretty sure you’re nodding in agreement.

I won’t be leaving you with just a few links to peruse.  We’ll be tackling those building blocks one at a time.  This week’s suggestion is to set up your writer Facebook presence, and your blog.  If you have anything you’d like to share on what’s working well for you, please feel free…if you’re blogging about platform building, let us all know so we can dash over to your blog.

Happy writing.