Tag: platform building

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Dear Jon: A Story of How NOT to Build a Platform

I’d been blogging for just over a month when one morning in the shower I was struck with a fantastic idea: I would email Jon Acuff to ask if he would guest post on my blog.

Brilliant! Why hadn’t I thought of this sooner?

I couldn’t dry off fast enough. I threw on my sweats and zipped downstairs to my computer, where I composed the request in a flurry and hit send. I even suggested to Jon that I would guest post at his place, if he would prefer that (I’m accommodating that way, you know).

If you don’t know Jon Acuff, he’s the author of the books Stuff Christians Like and Quitter. When I emailed him he hadn’t yet published his highly successful Stuff Christians Like, but his blog by the same name was wildly popular. At the time he had thousands of followers and received more than 100 comments on each post.

I, on the other hand, had exactly two followers (one — my husband — if you don’t count me).

I did know one thing for sure, though, and that was the fact that I needed to build a platform if I had any hope of landing an agent and publishing my book. After all, that was why I launched the blog in the first place, and I was determined to make this platform-building thing happen. The book was written; I assumed I had the hard part done.

Jon Acuff had a mega-platform. I had none. So the perfect solution, I figured, was to lure some of his readers over to my place, where they would be wooed by my stunning prose and become fans of my writing forever.

Voila! Instant platform, right?

You can probably guess what happened.

For starters, Jon Acuff politely declined my tantalizing offer. The fact that he responded to my email at all speaks volumes about his character. He kindly mentioned that he didn’t typically write guests posts or feature guest posts on his blog (something I would have known, had I been reading his blog for more than two weeks), and then he said this:

“Just write what you know from the heart, Michelle, and people will read it.”

I wasn’t pleased with his response. In addition to the intense shame I felt for proposing such a ludicrous idea, I was dismayed that there wasn’t a quick fix, a magic bullet, to platform-building.

“Write what I know?” I thought. “Write from the heart? What the heck is he talking about? There’s got to be a better way.”

As it turns out, Jon was right; there is no magic bullet for platform-building. There is no quick and easy way to build a following overnight, because the fact is, blogging and other social media are not simply about luring readers to our words, they are about building a genuine relationship with those readers.

And that takes time. And it takes genuine writing — writing from the heart, you might say.

I’ve been blogging for just over two years now. I still don’t have a mega-platform, but I do have something I never expected. I have online friends. 

People come to read my posts, yes, but many of these readers are also people with whom I have a genuine relationship.  We visit each other’s blogs and leave encouraging comments. We retweet each other’s posts. We offer support and advice to each other via email. And when I have the rare opportunity to meet some of these people in person, we continue our conversation face-to-face, as if we know each other well.

Because we do.

Despite the fact that I die a little every time I think about my foolish email to Jon Acuff, I don’t regret that I sent it. Jon graciously taught me an important lesson about this business. In the end, it’s not as much about the platform as it is about the people.

So what about you? Do you have any mortifying platform-building stories? And what have you found to be the key to successful platform-building?

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Build Your Platform – Get Yourself Some Gigs

Here is a terrifying sentence: If you want to be a writer, you probably need to be a speaker as well.

Gulp.

I know that most writers would rather hang out a coffee shop or with their cat writing the day away than speak. I know a few writers who would rather stab themselves in the eye with a sharpened yellow #2 pencil than speak. But if you are working on building a platform, speaking is your quickest way of doing that.

Just today, I had a woman from Texas call me up and say, “I’m ready to speak, but I don’t know how to launch that part of my business/ministry.” Since a good part of each of my work days are spent finding speaking gigs, I thought it would be helpful to share some of my strategies each time I blog here.

Tip #1

Speak for Free

It is the bane of every speaker’s existence. That moment when your event coordinator says, “We don’t really have a budget for speakers, but we would love to have you come.”

In my opinion, unless you are already booked to capacity, take the gig.

Yes, you are worth more than that, and your time is valuable. However, the best way to get more speaking engagements is by speaking. It is a false economy to sit at home all day creating flyers and making phone calls looking for paid speaking engagements, when you have passed up the opportunity to speak for free.

Speaking is your best form of advertisement. When someone is sitting in the audience listening to you, chances are she belongs to at least one or two other groups or organizations that use speakers on a fairly regular basis. Multiply that by the number of people sitting in the audience, and that is the best form of marketing.

Recently, a large church asked me to speak for free to a group of over 150 women. At first I was put off because surly they could afford to pay me. I thought better of it and accepted the gig.

From that one engagement, I have had three paid bookings, and another spin-off booking. Plus, I got a great recording from that one engagement.

If you are going to speak for free, make sure you get something out of it besides free advertising:

  • I always ask for my expenses to be reimbursed, (food, travel etc,) Don’t ever let your speaking cost you money.
  • Ask your venue if they can record you. Having that recording is essential when you are booking other gigs and they want to hear what you can do.
  • Build a great book table so even if you are not getting paid to speak, you can make money by selling your products.
  • Ask if the event coordinator will be a reference for you.

Action Plan:

  • Let the world know your are available. Tell friends, coworker fellow church members that you are open for business and willing to speak no matter the fee
  • Search our religious, community, and industry groups who are looking for free speakers
  • Even if it is not a subject that you are an expert on or passionate about, see if there is a way you can make it work for the group. This is especially important if you are fiction author. Your local MOPS group probably isn’t going to book you to talk about your latest historical novel, but they might just love your talk on Pursuing Your Passions as you talk about what it took to get published. Or how about a talk on making history come alive to kids?   Just figure out how to become a niche expert for any group by bringing in your specific expertise.

Question for You – If you speak, how are you getting your speaking engagements. If you don’t speak, why not?

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Platform Builders

When I started writing seriously in 2004, my focus lay completely in fiction. I’d written devotionals and snippets of life pieces in the past, but they served my own need for expression, then resided silently in a folder on my computer. Fiction was and is my passion.

But then something unexpected happened. In 2006 God presented me with the desire and opportunity to write as part of a team for a blog to help those in spiritually mismatched marriages like my own. I jumped in because I wanted to help other women avoid some of the heartache I’d experienced to reach a place of thriving in my faith and my marriage.

From this blog a ministry was born. Readership grew as did our perspective and understanding of the need we’d tapped into. This led to a book about how to thrive in this type of challenging marriage (aren’t all types challenging?), a Facebook presence, then a Twitter page. We suddenly found ourselves reaching readers in ways we hadn’t thought possible at the beginning. Our main site (www.SpirituallyUnequalMarriage.com) started showing up as a resource on other ministry and church websites. Thank goodness for Google Alerts to let us know!

All this coalesced into our platform, which became the turning point for a publisher to say yes to our book. How did that happen?

Here’s what I did:
1. Identify a need. As authors, we pretty much get the message today that we have to do more than just market our book. People want more. Common trends have set a pattern of having take away value. So, identify a need you can fill. Offer something to your reader that they can use and apply to their own lives. Once you identify a need, you can clarify your message. And you’ve just identified your market.

2. Create a presence. Social media has exploded at an astonishing rate in the last year alone. The heavy hitters (Facebook and Twitter) revolutionized communication. And now Google+ looks to be another joining the slew of social media giants. For our purposes, I will say that Facebook turned out to be surprising success. We wanted another means to connect with readers and be a resource and that’s what happened. Why? Because we made our page about our readers and meeting their needs, not about selling our book. Again there’s that take away value.

3. Consistency. Though we started with just our blog, we were and are consistent about content and postings. We brought this pattern over to our Facebook and Twitter pages, which builds presence, trust and reliability. Readers trust a growing presence that’s consistently putting information out there with a clear message that has no strings attached. Trust me, people smell an ulterior motive faster than the garbage dump next door. Be honest, be authentic and be original, but always stay true to your message.

4. Become a resource. Past experience opened the door to serve a specific market with the goal of being a resource. That was always the purpose—how did we assist others in finding the help they needed in a difficult marriage? What could people take away and apply to their lives and marriages? Over time, we presented ourselves as a reliable and helpful resource that other sites and churches could tap into. We showed we were there to help, to partner with individuals and groups, and to share what had worked for us in order to help others on the same path.

5. Be patient. (I can still hear my wise agent, Rachelle Gardner, telling me this.) Building a platform takes time. Factor that into your writing plan. Don’t rush to submit a project before it’s reached its potential because it’s a bigger challenge to turn a no into yes.

As I said this journey began in 2004 with my focus on learning the craft of writing and growing in my understanding and abilities. From mid 2006 to late 2009, our platform grew to the point that a publisher was willing to take a chance with our message. That platform is still growing to day with the addition of a special book site (www.WinningHimWithoutWords.com) focused on the message of the book and offering free resources for listening and downloading, as well as teaching videos. We’re also working on partnering with other authors to promote each other’s books and ministries through our newsletter, websites, and speaking engagements.

How does that affect my future as a fiction writer? Same game plan with some minor adjustments. The stories I write serve the same niche we found for our nonfiction and thus brings me back to step one. And away I go! See you on the shelves!

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Platform 101 for Regular (Not-Famous) People Like Me

Sometimes I wonder why I didn’t decide to be famous when I grew up.  Because I’m starting to think that if my face was plastered across magazine covers and my name was on the marquis, I would have a lot easier time getting people to read what I have to say.

But, alas, I decided to be a plain-old, regular gal.

And, while I like my regular life with my regular kids and my regular husband and my regular job, I imagine that authors with big-time names and fancy doctoral degrees have a much easier time building their platform than I do.

You see, I write pregnancy and parenting books.  And, while I do have three fabulously adorable kids that give me lots to talk about on the pregnancy and parenting front—I’m not an OB, I’m not a nurse and (shocker) I’m not Jenny McCarthy.

Which means I’m not an “expert”.  And I’m okay with that.  But will my readers be?  And, since I’m not, how do I convince my readers (and the world) to read what I have to say?

Here’s what I’ve learned about platform building for regular folk:

1.    Stick to writing what you know.  For some reason, people generally don’t like to hear advice from people who don’t know what they’re talking about.  (Who knew?)  So, since I’m not a doctor, I steer clear from giving medical advice, but give everyone the nitty gritty details on what it’s like to go to the doctor—something I’ve done a lot of.   You may not have a diploma on your wall—but if your life experiences have given you expertise in something, write about it!

2.     Write what you know in lots of places.  Once you’ve written what you know, write it in a lot of places.  Spread the love and submit articles for magazines, guest post on blogs, start a blog of your own and post user generated content on websites like Yahoo! Shine.   Get your name out there—and before long, people will start regarding you as an “expert”.

3.    Keep your blog focused on your area of expertise.  For a long time, I wrote blog posts according to the whim of the day.  And I found that my readership shrunk and my posts seemed stale.  Why?  Because they weren’t focused.  Based on some advice from my agent, Rachelle, I decided to keep my blog 100% focused on pregnancy and parenting—and thus, create a level of expertise for myself through my own blog postings.

4.    Get to know the experts in your area.  I had the most amazing OB read and endorse my book.  With his endorsement came the assurance that while my book wasn’t written by an OB, the advice in it was medically sound.  Likewise, I try to stay well read on the pregnancy and parenting front, so that when I publish material, it comes with the backing of the experts in the field.

5.    Get out there.  If you want to get your name out there, you have to actually get your name out there.  That means prying yourself away from your computer (fun as it is to write the day away) and meet people.  It can be as simple as going to playgroups/school meetings/ministry events and getting to know people in your audience and as complicated as setting up speaking engagements around the country.  Regardless, if you’re not out there talking about your book, no one else is.

Question:  What are your best platform-building tips?