Author Platform Building

7/5/2020

5 Mistakes Writers Make When Building Their Author Platforms

It's July 2020, and I'm discussing mistakes writers make when building their author platforms all month long.

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5 Mistakes Writers Make When Building Their Author Platforms

Use the following links to access the 5 Mistakes emails as they become available:

Mistake #1: Platform Building Instead of Writing
Mistake #2: Using the Word "Platform"
Mistake #3: FOMO Instead of Strategy & Intuition
Mistake #4: Social Media Exclusively; Ignoring Website & Email
Mistake #5: Waiting aka Procrastination, Analysis Paralysis, & Imposter Syndrome

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Below are additional resources related to the topics I've covered in this email series. You can find email specific resources towards the end of the post.

There's a lot here, so bookmark this page and come back as your community cultivating strategies develop over time. Enjoy!

The Smarty Pants Book Marketing Podcast

Binge these five episodes for a great introduction on marketing your books strategically and effectively:

Books & Audiobooks

Try Audible and Get Two Free Audiobooks

Buy This audiobook

More from Jane Friedman:

Listen: Jane Friedman discusses The Business of Being a Writer on The Creative Penn Podcast
Read: A Definition of Author Platform by Jane Friedman
Read: Draft Your Platform Action Plan: 5 Worksheets by Jane Friedman

Buy This audiobook

Listen: Tammi Labrecque on the Smarty Pants Book Marketing Podcast

On My "To Read" List:

Buy This audiobook

Read: Overview of the Reader Journey as described in Strangers to Superfans by David Gaughran

Watch:

Read: 1,000 True Fans by Kevin Kelly

Additional Resources Mentioned in the Email Series

Mistake #1: Platform Building Over Writing

Read: Writer Mami Maternity Leave & Staying Connected to Your Writer Self by Li Yun Alvarado

Mistake #2: Using The Word “Platform”

Additional Examples of Cultivating Community

attending your writing group or local readings
sending upcoming residency and grant opportunities to your email subscribers
blogging book recommendations — bonus if you spotlight the works of folks in your community

Posting blog posts on your social media
Having others take over your IG stories to share a favorite poem
Teaching a generative workshop (free or paid)
Asking readers for holiday or birthday gift recommendations (through email or a social media poll). Sharing their suggestions with your community.
Hosting or participating in a reading

Read: A Key Aspect of Publication Success? Relationship Building! by Li Yun Alvarado

Mistake #3: FOMO Instead of Strategy & Intuition

MAKING PLANS

I personally use and recommend the Passion Planner.

SAMPLE METRICS

Identify what metrics you’ll track to assess the health of your community and the success of reaching your community goals. Here are some sample metrics:

# of email subscribers & email open rate
# workshop attendees
# of people commenting / engaging on posts
# book release attendees

# blog traffic
# of book sales
$ earned in book sales / workshops
# Events attended / participated in
# IG posts / week
# of opportunities / invitations from your communities,
# of Amazon reviews or testimonials

MORE ON INTUITION

Another Intuition Example

Your intuition might tell you: you *have* to apply for a new residency.

You just heard about it, it has nothing to do with your community strategy as you mapped it out, and you don’t have any time to work on the application.

Guess what? Make time.

Even if you don’t get the residency, when your gut tells you you just have to try, then you have to go for it! Got it? Don’t overthink those moments.

When you talk yourself out of things your intuition tells you to do, you risk opening the door up to regret, and you don’t need any of that running the show.

More importantly, I truly believe those moments arrive to teach you something. They serve to get you closer to your goals in ways that you don’t have the ability to imagine yet. So when your gut tells you you just *have* to do something, trust me: do it.

Final Note on Intuition:

Sometimes fear tries to hijack your intuition and tell you something’s a “no,” not because it’s not in alignment or a great option, but because you’re afraid or have that healthy fear that’s better understood as excitement or anticipation.

How to tell the difference is beyond the scope of this series, but I did want to point out this possibility, so you’re on the look out and don’t give your fear free reign over your gut.

Practice listening to your intuition on small things and it will get easier to know the difference between nervous anticipation and fear.

Mistake #4: Social Media Exclusively; Ignoring Website & Email

Want some inspiration? Here are a few literary newsletters subscriptions I receive:

Shameless Plug! Li Yun Alvarado's Community
Nicole Gulotta’s Wild Words Newsletter & Community
Kirsten Oliphant’s Quick Fix Newsletter
Jane Friedman’s Electric Speed Newsletter
Memoir Mondays

Tackling Mistake #4

If you don’t have an author website, get on the waitlist for my course: Writer, You Need a Website! Let me help you create your first author website, so you have a strong foundation for your community cultivation.
If you already have a website, take a month or so to learn about best practices for author newsletters. Take no more than a month or you’ll go down a rabbit hole and never take action. The resources above are a great place to start.
After learning more, check in with yourself, and if your gut feels excited about taking the leap and connecting with your readers via email, below art the steps you'll want to take to get started with email.

Getting Started with Email Step-By-Step

Secure an email address linked to your domain --> [yourname @ your website url . com]. I pay an annual fee to be able to send emails from liyun [@] liyunalvarado [.] com . I use G-Suite through Weebly where my website is built and hosted. Check with your domain name provider to find the best way to set this up.
Sign up with an email service provider. No, you cannot just bcc all your contacts about your book 10 times the month it’s launching — that is literally illegal spamming (If you’ve already done this, don’t worry about it. You didn’t know. But now you know. And once you know better, you have to do better). I use and highly recommend MailerLite. It is free up to 1,000 subscribers. You can read my full MailerLite review here.
Ask yourself:
1. What will I email my list? (Updates? Books recommendations? Useful links? Blog posts?)
2. How can I entertain, educate, inspire, (and occasionally persuade) my readers?
3. How often can I honestly commit to emailing? I suggest you email at least monthly. Less than monthly and you risk ending up forgotten and/or in spam folders. Biweekly or weekly can work well too if you’re willing to commit to that frequency. If you do a good job building relationships with your people, you can also send several emails in one week during launch periods when you need your community to have your back, open your emails, and take action (buy, review, and/or share your work). How often you email your list depends on one primary factor: how often is sustainable for you? Don’t overcommit yourself here. If you’re not sure what’s reasonable, start with monthly emails.
4. Here’s what I tell my subscribers at sign up: “At least once a month you’ll receive Writing Life Insights, Updates, Book Recommendations, and Occasional Promotions”
[Optional but highly recommended]: Draft a simple 3 email “welcome” sequence to let your new subscribers know what to expect. This is time consuming on the front end, but is easier to put into place at the beginning than trying to add it in later. In Mailerlite you’d set up an automation so new subscribers only get the welcome emails automatically over the course of several days the first time they join.
Create forms / pages / places to collect emails. Make signing up for your list as enticing as possible. Check out the book below for more ideas on how to entice subscribers.
1. Set up a dedicated landing page with the sole purpose of collecting emails (MailerLite calls landing pages “sites”).
2. Share that landing page link on your email signature, social media, over text, etc, etc
3. Add a pop-up and newsletter subscription form(s) to your website
Invite all of your friends, family, and followers to sign up. They won’t all sign up right away and that’s OK. Remember it’s not the size of the list, it’s the quality of the relationships that matters here. Over time you’ll learn new ways to grow your email list full of readers who love hearing from you.
Start emailing your community as often as you promised with the kinds of things you promised to share.
Do a happy dance! You did it. You took action and are growing and connecting directly with your community!

Ok ok. I know, I know, that sounds like a lot of work.

It is a lot of work.

It’s a lot of time away from your writing to set up these systems. But once you’re all set up, you have direct access to readers you know want to connect with you regularly because they’ve handed over their email addresses.

Plus, once you're all set up, you get to the fun part: writing to your readers and cultivating that sense of community.

Learn More

If you'd like a deep dive into getting started with email, I recommend Tammi Labrecque's book. It's geared towards indie authors, but many of the strategies can be applied by all authors, regardless of how they publish.

Buy This audiobook

Mistake #5: Waiting aka Procrastination, Analysis Paralysis, and Imposter Syndrome

Please Don't Wait!

Set some goals.
Pick some metrics.
Set some timelines.
Do one thing after another.

Want some support? Here are some offerings that might be of help:

Write Your Year: Reflect, Set Intentions, & Chart a Course for Your Writing Life (Waitlist)
You Need a Website: 5 Days to Your First Author Website (Waitlist)
Writer CV Hacks: Create, Maintain, and Quickly Adapt Your Writer CV (Free Training)

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Author Platform Building

5 Mistakes Writers Make When Building Their Author Platforms