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| "Yellow-vented bulbul nest" by Son K Lee under CC BY-SA 3.0. Altered by Karen Woodward |
Building a platform is, apart from writing, the single most important thing a writer can do, but it doesn't have to take up hours of your day. Depending on your goals, building a platform could take minutes.
Building a platform isn't just about marketing and promotion. It can also improve your writing by making you more aware of who your audience is and how you can reach them.
I haven't finished writing this series, when I do I'll revise the posts and bundle them a book, but here's what I've written so far:
Building A Writer's Platform: What It Is And How To Do It
1) What Is A Writer's Platform?
A writer's platform is a way, a vehicle, for reaching out to, and building, community. The 64 thousand dollar question is: How does one develop visibility, authority, and the ability to reach out to a target audience?2) Does Every Writer Need A Platform?
A writer can produce the most riveting prose imaginable but if you don't have readers you're not going to be able to pay the rent. And paying rent is important. I have no desire to end up under a bridge trying to wrestle the good cardboard box from Big Martha. Of course, one doesn't have to make a living through writing, but if you want to then you'll need readers to buy your work. It doesn't get more basic than that. How does a writer get readers? By building a platform.3) Building A Platform That Meets Your Needs
A while ago I wrote an article entitled: How To Build A Platform: Why Every Writer Needs A Website, in which I argued that just having a blog wasn't good enough, you need a website too.These days, I'm not so sure. I think having a blog might be good enough. Here's the thing: What you need depends on what your goals are. What is the main thing folks are going to visit your site for? Who are these folks going to be?
4) SEO Tips & Tricks: How To Make Google Love Your Blog
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is falling-off-a-log EASY. Well, the beginning stuff, the stuff that can make a huge difference, is. A SEO expert could fine tune your site and your SEO presence would (hopefully) go from good to awesome, but if good is good enough, read on.5) The Nuts And Bolts Of Social Media (upcoming)
Minimally, a writer needs a (static) webpage that displays her name, or pen name(s), her contact information (a form or just an email address), where she can be found on the web (Twitter, Facebook, etc), what she's written, where it can be bought, and perhaps a few lines about her work in progress. A slightly more complex website would also have a blog. These sort of sites can be set up by a writer for free on blogger.com, or for a small charge on Wordpress.com. In this article I will go into greater depth on how to do that.
Photo credit for the underlying image: Son K Lee
