Your Writer Platform

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6-Month Business Planning Guide for Authors

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6-month business planning guide for authors

As an author, you know that publishing a book is just the beginning of your journey. In order to turn your book into a successful writing career, you need to have a clear plan in place. This 6-month business planning guide for authors will help you lay the foundation for long-term success.

Step 1: Define Your Goals

Before you can create a plan, you need to know what you’re working towards. Take some time to think about your goals as an author.

  • Do you want to make a full-time living from your writing?
  • Do you want to build a platform to help you land a traditional publishing deal?
  • Do you simply want to share your message with as many people as possible?

Your goals will shape every decision you make, so it’s important to be clear about what you want to achieve.

Write down your goals and keep them in a place where you can refer to them often. This will help you stay focused and motivated as you work towards your objectives.

[Read more…]

Using Fanfiction to Build your Audience, Brand, and Platform

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fanfiction to build and grow your author brand

This is a guest post by writer and marketer, Hayley Zelda, on using fanfiction to build your audience, brand, and platform. She’s written on major writing platforms and worked with a number of self-published authors on marketing books to the YA audience.

Have you ever been so interested in an artist or musician that you searched to find like-minded people so that you could enjoy your idol’s works together?

Have you ever been so fascinated with a character or setting of a book or TV series that you wanted to create your own story inspired by them?

If so, welcome to the world of fandoms and fanfiction.    

What is a Fandom? 

Fandom is a term used to describe communities built around a shared enjoyment and fascination with an aspect of pop culture, such as books, musicians, celebrities, internet personalities, movies, or TV series.   

Fanfiction archive website FanFiction.net declared the Harry Potter fandom as number one in their list of the most popular fandoms online. In fact, according to the data they released, there are around 821,000 stories about the books and movie series. 

[Read more…]

Building Your Author Brand: The Most Common Mistakes Writers Make

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Building Your Author Brand_ The Most Common Mistakes Writers Make _ YourWriterPlatform.com

Branding plays a surprisingly important role in your author business.

Every time someone sees your name, lands on your website, reads your book or listens to you speak, you’re reinforcing what you want them to know about you and your work.

And whether you actively shape it or not, with every touchpoint or seemingly ‘insignificant’ interaction, your brand is being formed.

That’s why it’s critical to decide upfront what story you want to tell.

In this 3-part Author Branding Series we’ll:

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5 Completely Avoidable Author Website Mistakes That Cost You Fans (And Simple Ways to Fix Them)

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5 Completely Avoidable Author Website Mistakes That Cost You Fans (And Simple Ways to Fix Them) | YourWriterPlatform.com

Your author website is the cornerstone of your writer platform and media presence, and it’s the one piece of real estate online that you can (mostly) control. In this guest post, David Loy (Co-Founder and CEO of Leverage Creative Group) outlines 5 mistakes writers often make on their sites that undermine their ability to build an active and supportive community around their work. He also includes simple ways to fix these mistakes. Enjoy!

Let’s say you’ve just read an amazing book or watched a captivating speaker.

They’ve drawn you in, and you want to learn more about them.

So, with high hopes and anticipation of more great content, you go to their website. [Read more…]

Build Your Writer Platform: Create a Strategic Plan to Grow Your Writing Career

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Create a Strategic Plan to Grow Your Writing Career _ YourWriterPlatform.com

If you’ve been trying to build your writer platform, grow your author biz AND still find time to write (and failing miserably), make sure to read this entire post because I may have the answer…

I’ve spent over two years developing and testing Believe, Plan, Act: A Platform + Productivity Planner for Writers, spurred on by the frustration and overwhelm of writers just like you, struggling to gain traction and build a career around their work.

I knew there had to be a way to streamline the process, improve focus and efficiency and empower writers to take an active role in both the creative and business aspects of their writing career.

So I created a complete author business planning system, designed to specifically address the needs of writers, and to help you build the FOUNDATIONAL elements of your platform and author business – everything from clarifying your creative and career goals, to strategic marketing, launch planning, and developing your author brand. [Read more…]

Authors with Platforms Sell Books.

It’s that simple.

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