Your Writer Platform

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The Writer’s Weekly Wrap-Up (Issue #23)

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The Writer's Weekly Wrap-Up (Issue #23) - Holiday Book Sales | YourWriterPlatform.comThis post is part of a weekly series on YWP, aptly titled “The Writer’s Weekly Wrap-Up”.

Each Sunday, I will endeavour to provide you with a curated list of the best articles I have seen throughout the week that relate to building your platform.

The featured articles cover topics on book marketing and promotion, blogging, social media and self-publishing. (I may even throw in a few inspirational and fun posts, just so that it’s not all work and no play!)

Simple Book Marketing Tips for the Holidays

Regardless of whether we are feeling merry and bright, jolly or joyous, the holiday season is swiftly approaching.

And with it’s advance comes the warm and fuzzy, guerrilla marketing tactics we’ve grown accustomed to associating with ‘holiday spirit’.

Promotional efforts get hardcore this time of year, with every business from Amazon to Zappos vying for gift buyers’ attention.

So if you haven’t felt ‘dirty’ enough hocking your book on your shiny new website or on 20+ social media platforms, it’s time to get really indecent!

I mean, how else are you going to get noticed in all the clamouring and arm waving if you don’t go all ‘Black Friday’ on your holiday book marketing efforts?

Right? 😉 [Read more…]

The Writer’s Weekly Wrap-Up (Issue #22)

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The Writer's Weekly Wrap-Up (Issue #22) - Habit | YourWriterPlatform.comThis post is part of a weekly series on YWP, aptly titled “The Writer’s Weekly Wrap-Up”.

Each Sunday, I will endeavour to provide you with a curated list of the best articles I have seen throughout the week that relate to building your platform.

The featured articles cover topics on book marketing and promotion, blogging, social media and self-publishing. (I may even throw in a few inspirational and fun posts, just so that it’s not all work and no play!)

Find Your Motivation, Then Develop a Habit

I often like to use a ‘learning to drive’ analogy when giving authors hope that things will get easier as they embark on their book marketing and platform building journey.

You may have to reach back a bit (as I do), but I think most of you can recall your experience, excitement–and trepidation–when first learning to master the skills necessary to safely handle a 3500 lbs automobile.

At first, the number of things to know and apply is utterly overwhelming, and you wonder how you’ll ever manage to make a left turn in rush hour traffic, or successfully merge onto a freeway before your lane runs out.

Locate the controls.

Adjust your mirrors.

Shoulder check.

Hands at ten and two.

Adjust speed to road conditions.

Try not to kill yourself or the person who recklessly agreed to help you learn to drive… [Read more…]

The Writer’s Weekly Wrap-Up (Issue #21)

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The Writer's Weekly Wrap-Up (Issue #21) - Favourite Podcasts | YourWriterPlatform.comThis post is part of a weekly series on YWP, aptly titled “The Writer’s Weekly Wrap-Up”.

Each Sunday, I will endeavour to provide you with a curated list of the best articles I have seen throughout the week that relate to building your platform.

The featured articles cover topics on book marketing and promotion, blogging, social media and self-publishing. (I may even throw in a few inspirational and fun posts, just so that it’s not all work and no play!)

Prime Podcasts

Moving from the ‘early adopter’ crowd to more mainstream listeners, podcasting is fast becoming an indispensable tool for many content producers.

And it’s easy to see why.

With the tremendous popularity of smart phones and other mobile devices, podcast audiences have begun to grow significantly.

You can download a podcast episode at anytime, on any device and listen to it anywhere: on your daily commute, while working out, or–my personal favourite–while walking the dog!

For those of you who have desperately asked, “How can I learn all this marketing stuff, and still find time to write?”

Podcasts just may be the answer. [Read more…]

The Writer’s Weekly Wrap-Up (Issue #20)

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The Writer's Weekly Wrap-Up #20 Own RaceThis post is part of a weekly series on YWP, aptly titled “The Writer’s Weekly Wrap-Up”.

Each Sunday, I will endeavour to provide you with a curated list of the best articles I have seen throughout the week that relate to building your platform.

The featured articles cover topics on book marketing and promotion, blogging, social media and self-publishing. (I may even throw in a few inspirational and fun posts, just so that it’s not all work and no play!)

Run Your Own Race

Have you found yourself stalled out of any forward movement, your inspiration and motivation for a project completely squelched, just because you happened to stumble across ‘better’?

A manuscript with a better plot, an article with a better angle, a book with a better cover, a colleague with a better network, a website with a better design, a marketer with a better strategy, an author with a better platform (a mother with better instincts, ugh! I hate that one).

At first, you’re inspired by the possibility, and if ‘they’ can do it, so can you, right?

Except, they’re just so much better, and you begin to realize how much time and effort -and fairy dust- it’s actually going to take to move you from here to there. [Read more…]

The Writer’s Weekly Wrap-Up (Issue #18)

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The Writer's Weekly Wrap-Up (Issue #18) | YourWriterPlatformThis post is part of a weekly series on YWP, aptly titled “The Writer’s Weekly Wrap-Up”.

Each Sunday, I will endeavour to provide you with a curated list of the best articles I have seen throughout the week that relate to building your platform.

The featured articles cover topics on book marketing and promotion, blogging, social media and self-publishing. (I may even throw in a few inspirational and fun posts, just so that it’s not all work and no play!)

Don’t Bamboozle, Cajole, Beg or Bombard Your Potential Readers

Getting the word out to potential readers about your work is a critical aspect to building your writer platform and establishing a successful writing career.

This is typically the role of marketing and promotion: get the right book in front of the right people, and magic happens.

The kicker?

Most writers haven’t got the foggiest idea how to market themselves or their work effectively, and are left scrambling to figure it out on their own.

The default ‘marketing methods’ that many adopt out of desperation are the loud, pushy hard-sell or outright shameless pleading.

The result? Definitely NOT magic.

But there is something that you can do right now that can jumpstart your marketing and give you an edge in all promotional aspects of your writing career: [Read more…]

Authors with Platforms Sell Books.

It’s that simple.

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