Your Writer Platform

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The Writer’s Weekly Wrap-Up (Issue #27)

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The Writer's Weekly Wrap-Up #28 _ YourWriterPlatform.com

This 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!)

A Picture is Worth a Thousand “Likes”

Image based content is becoming more and more relevant in driving social media engagement.

Photos, infographics, image quotes and other forms of graphics often receive significantly more interaction than their text-based counterparts.

And, whether you are active on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+ or Pinterest (or all of the above), the skillful use of images can give you an edge when it comes to capturing the attention of your audience.

To benefit from this trend, consider doing the following:

  • Share excerpts or quotes from your book, speaking engagements or reviews.
  • Create throat-grabbing blog post images, helpful infographics or fun collages.
  • Design image quotes that are entertaining, inspirational or even a series of quick tips.

Use your creativity (or get inspired by somebody else’s) and start developing some truly share-worthy images for your social media accounts. [Read more…]

The Writer’s Weekly Wrap-Up (Issue #26)

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The Writer's Weekly Wrap-Up (Issue #26) | www.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!)

Engineer Your Best Year Ever

I’ve just recently returned from an amazing 5 day stay in Vegas for the New Media Expo conference and WOW!

What a fantastic opportunity to enjoy the company–and experience the charisma–of some of the top bloggers, podcasters and new media experts killing it online today.

And although the conference boasted some pretty big names, the majority of the energy and inspiration could be felt in the halls, between presentations, from the teeming masses of average Joe’s, bursting with excitement at the possibilities–the potential that awaits for those of us just getting started.

If you’ve experienced a conference, you probably know what I mean. It is immensely motivating to surround yourself with a group of like-minded, passionate and intentional people. People who speak your language. [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…]

The Writer’s Weekly Wrap-Up (Issue #14)

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Backup your website | The Writer's Weekly Wrap-Up | www.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!)

Bad Things Can Happen To Good People

Imagine this scenario: you wake up one morning to find that your entire site is gone. Every post, comment, tweak and photo has disappeared into the ether.

Nightmares and cold sweats, right? Can you even wrap your mind around the possibility of starting all over from scratch?

I can’t. In fact, I feel a little nauseous just thinking about it.

So before we dive into the featured articles, here’s a quick ‘how-to’ on website backup, so that we can all sleep easier tonight:

Backup For WordPress (Self-hosted):

There are many options for backing up your self-hosted WordPress site, so I recommend you do a bit of research to ensure you’re getting what works best for you. Here is one free option and one premium option for you to consider:

1. WordPress BackWPup plugin (free) – this plugin allows you to schedule full, automatic backups, as well as decide where you want your backups stored. Go here for a quick tutorial on setup.

2. Backup Buddy is a premium (paid) plugin which is similar to BackWPup, but also provides support and malware scanning. [Read more…]

The Writer’s Weekly Wrap-Up (Issue #13)

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The Writer's Weekly Wrap-Up (Issue #13)This 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 Waste! Recycle Your Content

You’re convinced that building your writer platform is a necessary evil, and you’ve even managed to set up your author headquarters and create content for your website with some regularity.

But seriously!

Who has the time to continually produce ‘epic’ content for a website, rock several social media platforms with brilliant wit and casual banter AND knock out a respectable daily writing quota?

Not me, and I’m betting not you either!

So here’s a short checklist of ways you can repurpose the great content you already have, as well as get extra mileage out of your future posts:

  • build on a theme or idea that you’ve already written about; go deeper or try approaching the topic from a different angle.
  • turn an in-depth post into a video series, discussing each point separately in 5 minute mini-productions.
  • transcribe an interview or podcast, tweak it and turn it into a blog post.
  • take a pillar post and create a slideshow presentation for Slideshare.
  • mine your blog post or interview for great quotes that you can turn into Tweets, Facebook conversation starters or beautiful text-on-image graphics for Pinterest.
  • use an older, but evergreen post, to develop a PDF download or email opt-in series to give away as your ‘ethical bribe’ to incentivize new subscribers to sign up to your email list.

Now that you’ve got some ideas for making your content work harder for you, take a breather and enjoy this week’s wrap-up of featured articles and resources! [Read more…]

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