| Your Writer Platform

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!)

Prime Podcasts

Moving from the ‘early adopter’ crowd to more mainstream listeners, podcasting is fast becoming an indispensable tool for many content producers.

And it’s easy to see why.

With the tremendous popularity of smart phones and other mobile devices, podcast audiences have begun to grow significantly.

You can download a podcast episode at anytime, on any device and listen to it anywhere: on your daily commute, while working out, or–my personal favourite–while walking the dog!

For those of you who have desperately asked, “How can I learn all this marketing stuff, and still find time to write?”

Podcasts just may be the answer. [Read more…]

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…]

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

What is a Gravatar?

Authors with Platforms Sell Books.