A Writer's Platform

When you are becoming a self-published author, you are going into business. This business has nothing to do with the creative side and everything to do with the business aspect of getting your work out there. This is what major publishing houses used to do, and from my understanding, today the major publishing houses like to see that you have a platform before really looking at you.

I attended a new writing group today, and they talked about the publishing side of this art. I took note on two aspects: making a website and making myself known via a writer's platform.

I do not understand that much about making a website yet, so I will put that aside for another day. But, I do want to talk about the platform, which includes a website, Facebook and YouTube. There is Instagram, too, but this was not a focus. It was a mention.

One of the first ideas to remember is to use key words about your creative piece (and really, this can be used for any idea from writing to painting to sewing to crafting to anything, really). Since I am into writing, that will be my examples. So, let's say I am writing a murder mystery about a detective (of course) and a serial killer (ho-hum, boring) but there is a twist, the serial killer takes the guise of a super hero -- you know, characters like IronMan, Superman, or Spiderman, those guys (more interesting here, I may perk up a bit). So, I have written the book and am starting to publicize it.

My key words would be heroes, serial killers, murder mystery.

I am going to do a search for the most searched words of my key words, and once I get the list (I would imagine a very long list on that one), then you look at the words that have the lowest competition  -- let's say "serial killer heroes". Since these words are highly googled it is a good thing, then if the phrase has little competition, like there are few serial killers who are considered heroes.

Please note not to use the actual character's name, such as Superman, because that could be a copyright infringement. You could write the company to see if you could use the name, but I would make up my own super hero's name, like Halbeast. As you write more and more books in the series, or if you paint and you paint a series of Halbeast paintings, you would then have that name as part of your key words.

That is the preliminary and very important for your name to be associated with that specific writing.

There are three major components of publicity, or what we could call a writer's platform as mentioned above. The website, Facebook and YouTube. They link together.

The website gives all your information, what you have published, how you are known, maybe a blog domain on the website, your shop, and links to your Facebook page and your YouTube videos.

I have a social media page for Facebook, and I asked how do I write for Facebook, and the moderator said that she has three Facebook pages -- personal (I have), an author page, and a fan page. On the author page, I might write about one of my characters, or some research, or ask for help on which cover to use or ideas about a twist in the book. (I would have my profile linked to my website and YouTube with all my necessary information under the "about" link).

Then, there is YouTube. I should make 15 seconds of video with maybe a reading of a scene, or maybe a visual scene and once again ask for input. This is also linked to my website and the author's page on Facebook.

I do have a lot to learn, and even more so, I have a lot to do. Getting my stories to the public seems to be quite a bit of work that has little to do with creating them. But, I am willing. So, it looks like I am going to be doing a lot more of this









Than this.






And dreaming of this

I need a vacation before I start all this. Think I will go to Alaska....

Until tomorrow...have a great day....