overachieving your platform – WordServe Water Cooler

Exciting things have been happening at WordServe Literary this month!

On the final post of each month you’ll find a list of Water Cooler contributors’ recently released books along with a recap of WordServe client news.

New Releases

The second book in the Best of the WordServe Water Cooler series released this month! Overachieving Your Platform: 95 Ideas to Embrace Your Inner Sales Marketing Genius offers advice on how to break out and build a platform that really works–with proven advice from more than 30 WordServe authors. This is one no author can afford to miss!

Debora Coty released the Too Blessed to Be Stressed 5-Year Journal with Barbour. Overflowing with encouragement, inspiration, scripture selections, and humor just for your beautiful heart, this journal offers a special place to record your innermost thoughts and feelings, life’s lovely blessings, and anything else that might be on your mind.

Cyndy Feasel, with Mike Yorkey, released After the Cheering Stops with Thomas Nelson. Cyndy, wife of the former NFL player Grant Feasel, tells the tragic story of her family’s journey into chaos and darkness resulting from the damage her husband suffered due to football-related concussions and head trauma—and the faith that saved her.

April Knight released ScriptureDoodle: God’s Promises with David C. Cook. This six-week devotional experience refreshes believers who are feeling burned out or stuck in a rut in their relationship with God. Each of the creative worship prompts in the interactive guide includes biblical encouragement and ideas for worship through art.

Donald Stratton and Ken Gire released All the Gallant Men with William Morrow. The first memoir by a USS Arizona survivor, this is a gripping and intimate account of Donald Stratton’s experience at Pearl Harbor, where a million pounds of explosives were donated beneath his battle station aboard the Arizona; his year-long recovery from burns to most of his body; and his re-enlistment with the Navy to serve in several additional naval battles.

New Contracts

Craig Chapman signed with Regnery Publishing for his book, Battle Hardened, the story of his father’s combat journey across Europe from D-Day to VE Day.

New Clients

Kevin Keating and Bonnie Kristian signed with WordServe Literary this month.

Many years ago, a good friend went into a coma after giving birth. She was on life support for nearly four months. We all prayed and wondered if she would pull through to see her baby girl and live a full life.

By her side was her husband. Every day he was at the hospital talking with doctors and nurses, making sure medication was properly being administered, asking questions . . . basically, being every doctor’s worst nightmare when it came to patient care. But you know, on several occasions, he insisted on something that actually saved his wife’s life. The third leading cause of death in America is medical care accidents and misdiagnoses. He needed to care for his wife because if he didn’t, the worst could happen.

I mention this story because I think it can be illustrative of some of the realities of book publishing today. Sometimes, your book is the one on life support, often from the moment of publication. Standing by are publishers and PR folks who are tasked and paid to keep your book alive. They’re busy, they have other patients (authors), and are generally overworked and understaffed.

The point is you cannot leave your book’s marketing and PR ONLY in the hands of publishers. They’ll do their best (usually), but they’re not perfect. And sadly, they have the 80/20 principle that is always screaming at them from the higher-ups. In publishing, it’s true: 80 percent of the money goes to 20 percent of the books. It’s a reality that won’t change, so we have to learn to deal with it.

So what should you do, then, as the author standing by your baby, trying to keep it alive?

You’ve got to tend to it diligently.

With your publisher: ask questions, say thank you a lot (gift cards and flowers are nice) when they do a job well done, give them ideas, don’t mention a problem unless you have a solution, tell them what you’ll do to help, keep track of everyone who helps (radio stations, bloggers, author friends). Work WITH them as much as they will let you.

What else can you do?

Well, we at the Water Cooler have just released a book that will help answer that question. Overachieving Your Platform: 95 Ideas to Embrace Your Inner Sales Marketing Genius is now available from FaithHappenings Publishers, and it offers the tools you need to break out and connect with large audiences. Adapted from the best writing of the WordServe Water Cooler, these doable, practical and affordable ideas will transform your platform and expand your audience if you put them into practice. No, you can’t do them all. But you can certainly go through this book with your highlighter and mark everything you actually could do. Then make a plan. What will you do during your first month from publication, second month, third? Write the plan out . . . and then work it.

Publishers, agents, and retailers agree: you’re only as good as your last book. So if your last book flops in the marketplace, it may very well indeed be your last book!

Don’t let that happen. Stay on guard by your book for the first six months to a year after launch, and you’re far more likely to get that second book contract. You may even get a royalty check.

I’m so proud of all of the authors who contributed to Overachieving Your Platform. They’ve done the hard work in the trenches and have learned from their successes and failures. All they know they’ve shared with you.

Grab a copy today—and take that first step toward creating a platform and brand that will serve you for the rest of your writing career.

And if you haven’t checked out the first book in the series, Excelling at the Craft of Writing: 101 Ways to Move Your Prose to the Next Level, make sure to do that as well. Craft and marketing go hand in hand when it comes to a writing career—you won’t find success unless you’ve got both!