Your Writer Platform

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The Writer’s Weekly Wrap-Up: Using Google Alerts to Build Your Writer Platform (Issue #29)

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The Writer's Weekly Wrap-Up _ YourWriterPlatform.com (1)

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!)

Get Out Your Spy Gear; It’s Time to Gather Some Intel!

Raise your hand if you’ve heard of Google Alerts.

Raise your hand if you know how you can leverage Google Alerts to easily gather knowledge on what others are saying about you and your work online, as well as what they’re saying about other authors, your industry, or your genre.

For those of you with your hands down, I’ve whipped up a quick guide on how to use Google Alerts to flex your secret agent muscle. [Read more…]

The Highly Underrated Gravatar – Why You Need One and How to Get It

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The Highly Underrated Gravatar - Why You Need One and How to Get It | Your Writer Platform

Setting up your online presence can be an onerous task.

There is a long list of to-do’s between setting up your website, optimizing your social media outposts and creating compelling content that not only resonates with your current readers but draws new visitors to your site.

And typically, the most significant movements forward come from concentrating on the big stuff and avoiding just-one-more-little-tweak syndrome.

When first starting out, most of us are overly susceptible to this condition because we don’t have a hierarchy of importance for tasks – we don’t have enough experience to determine what is critical for building momentum, and what are simply time-wasters.

What makes it even tougher?

Occasionally it is a small thing that can end up making a powerful difference in your ability to stand out, get noticed and build your author brand.

Here is one of those super-effective small things: your Gravatar.

What is a Gravatar?

As you’ve been busily commenting away on influential sites in your genre or niche (you have been implementing a comment strategy, right?), I’m sure you’ve noticed the small images that accompany people’s comments or discussions on the various sites.

These images are called Gravatars, which stands for ‘globally recognized avatars’.

A Gravatar allows blogs, sites and forums to use an avatar (an image, icon or graphic that represents you or your brand online) that you only have to set up once, rather than having to upload an image each time you comment. [Read more…]

10 Ways to Defeat Obscurity: Tips for Authors Who Want to Get Noticed (Infographic)

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It’s a bit of a gong show out there.10 Ways to Defeat Obscurity: Tips For Authors Who Want to Get Noticed | YourWriterPlatform.com

Everybody scrambling to get noticed, to be heard.

It’s particularly difficult for some writers, who aren’t known for their smooth social skills and extroverted tendencies.

But there are ways to break through the bustle and noise to find those people who are truly interested in hearing what you have to say.

And it can be done without the dirty feeling of hawking your wares on a crowded street corner.

Below is an infographic of 10 things you can incorporate into your marketing strategy today, to begin to shine a light on your work and expand your career as an author. [Read more…]

34 Strategic Ways You Can Use Pinterest to Market Your Book and Your Author Brand

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34 Strategic Ways You Can Use Pinterest to Market Your Book and Author Brand _ YourWriterPlatform.com

Pinterest is exploding!

And with it, so too are the opportunities for authors to expand their reach and increase their book promotion and brand awareness.

Now the third largest social network, Pinterest acts as a virtual pin board that helps you organize and share things you find on the web. As you surf, you can pin images from other sites onto Pinterest where others can re-pin those same images.

People head to Pinterest to find solutions, get ideas and to be inspired. Plus pinners are buyers. 

Hmmm…

So how do we encourage them to be book buyers–your book buyers?

Well, like with all social media, it’s important to avoid the incessant self-promotion. Pinterest is a quieter platform where you express yourself primarily through images. No witty banter required.

Plus, over 80% of pins are re-pins, which means if you are in that 20% of pinners that are sharing original content, you can add real value. If you provide remarkable content, your fellow pinners will happily circulate it for you.

What’s important on Pinterest is to market indirectly by building trust, loyalty and engagement. You want to give people a reason to click through to your site for more.

“Pinterest drives more referral traffic to websites than Google+, LinkedIn and YouTube combined.”

~ Mashable

Your goal should be to teach, entertain and inspire your audience on Pinterest. In return, Pinterest will grant you the ability to increase awareness of your author brand, drive more relevant traffic to your website and increase your book sales. [Read more…]

71 Ways to Promote and Market Your Book

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ways to promote and market your book

Do you know the most powerful way to market your book?

Word of mouth recommendation.

It’s a free, highly credible, highly viral resource that helps to amplify your efforts to create interest and buzz about your work.

And all you really need for word of mouth marketing is a book worthy of sharing, and a way to get it into the hands of the people who will spread the word.

Sound simple?

Well it is simple, but not necessarily easy.

The devil is in the details, right?

Although the concept is simple, the implementation is going to require some time and effort, especially in the beginning.

However, with a good plan, you’ll soon reach a tipping point where your fans begin to market for you in numbers great enough to really impact your book sales.

How To Get Started

The best time to design and implement your marketing plan of action is before you even start writing your book. It takes time to build relationships, learn your readers wants and needs, and develop a base of rabid fans that clamour for more.

Grow your readership as you write your book, and when it’s time to launch your book, you’ll already have an invested and eager audience waiting.

Great advice, except my book is already written. Now what?

Even if you already have your book in hand, don’t panic! The process is still the same. It just may take a little longer to see the book sales come rolling in.

So, let’s skip past the year or two (or five) of blood, sweat, and tears that were required for you to write, edit, and polish your masterful novel, and assume that it is indeed worthy of personal recommendation.

The next step is to get your share-worthy work noticed and shared by the right people. Here are a few key things to remember:

  • Focus more on discoverability rather than selling. Your work is important, so help those who can benefit from it, find it.
  • Accept responsibility for the marketing and promotion of your book. Even if you choose to outsource some of the work, your book’s success depends on you taking action.

Authors with Platforms Sell Books.

It’s that simple.

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