Building Your Self-Promotion Platform: From Strategy to Action, Steps for Independent Authors
Connecting with fans, friends, followers: it’s done in multiple ways. Authors can’t depend on one type of outreach to be successful. Putting up a website is not likely to pull people into your world. It’s all about relationship-building with your audience, getting them interested, and engaged.
Authors have lots of choices: Putting up an author profile on Amazon (once your book is published) and on sites like Goodreads, LinkedIn and Facebook can help people find you. There are many other types of online real estate that can make it easier for fans to find you and your book(s):
- Blogging
- Podcasts
- Videos
- Websites
Offline, authors can get attention through print media and live events. But, without a plan, it is like launching a ship in the ocean and hoping you get to your destination without knowing the where you are starting from, where you are going and if you are on course throughout your trip.
Resistance is Futile
Many authors feel resistant to the whole idea of self-promotion. When you know the facts, avoiding self-promotion is a recipe for poor book sales. According to Bowker (the company that sells ISBN’s), more than 725,000 self-published works were registered in 2015. Without some form of self-promotion, your book is likely to be overlooked and invisible.
The 5 essential areas of building your self-promotion platform:
1. Your identity
2. Making a schedule and sticking to it
3. Building relationships and growing your community with email, social presence intelligence
4. Influencers and friends
5. Measuring success
Common Stumbling Blocks for Independent Authors
- Lack of technical skills
- No plan
- Fear
- Unclear purpose and message
- No identifiable brand
- Few or no followers
Any one of these obstacles can derail an independent author. How can they develop a consistent and compelling message that gets attention and people reading their books? This is a critical step to selling books, yet many authors think that once they publish, people will magically know and care about their book. This workshop will cover why it is important to create a plan, a brand, how to hone your message, face fear, and build a fanbase.
Two Judy’s Are Better Than One When It Comes to Building Your Author Platform
BAIPA members, Judy Baker and Judy Reyes, will take authors from strategy to concrete action steps in building an author platform in small, manageable steps. Baker focuses on strategy, Reyes on plan implementation. They will cover the 5 essentials of building your self-promotion platform. Authors will create solid action plans for platform growth. They will see that you can measure your results and how to make adjustments as needed. The Judy’s will show independent authors that marketing can be fun and effective in their half-day workshop, 9:30 am to 12:30 pm.
Join the Judy’s Saturday, April 22nd to learn how to build a successful author platform at the Flamingo Hotel, 2777 4th Street, Santa Rosa, California.
To find out more go to Redwood Writers
Judy Baker attributes her love of color to her mother and her love of books to her father. She has been passionate about communication since she was a child. She acted in little theater and studied drama and telecommunication at San Diego State University. Fascinated by the ways in which people behave, Baker studied Organization Behavior at UCSF and went on to become the first Director of Human Resources for Sutter Home Winery. Following the “Great Downsizing of 1992,” she was featured in a story in the Press Democrat as one of the first women in Sonoma County to have a home office.
