I’m really looking closely at how successful authors are using the Internet to help their sales. Everyone runs in a pack as we all do what everyone else does to sell more books, spread our name around as an author, attempt to figure out how to blog, Twitter, and Facebook to get folks interested in our story.
It’s actually quite a feat. I started working on my fiction platform with this blog almost a year ago now. Have I accomplished anything?
1. I learned to write faster and better. Blogging does that. However, blogging is a frenetic sort of writing, not the narrative craft that fiction (and memoir) requires. Blogging flexes different muscles. I’ve had to work hard to not get stuck in my writing as just a blogger.
2. I have met a lot of great people. That’s the best part about building a platform online. You meet just incredible people. Who said they were bored with life? Um, get online already. Read blogs, read books, learn from these folks. There is no time to be bored. Seriously.
3. I learned how to niche the blog properly. This blog was a lot of stuff about a year ago. I just dumped everything I wanted to write about here. I had to divide it up last winter. And then this summer I realized I needed to niche it down even further. It has payed off. When you are brave enough to cut out just random thoughts you have, in order to stick to what really matters, well, the blog can soar. So, for writers wondering if they should focus on the topic that they are writing about, yes. And be careful which topic you pick, because you’ll be living and breathing it for a few years.
4. Fiction and non-fiction are very different. I think this blog really solidified in my head when I picked a non-fiction niche. My fiction work is a nice side show (perhaps it will be better when I sell a novel). It’s obvious that people want to know about my true story, not my fiction story. That’s interesting.
5. Finally, the online community is really cool. Everyone’s trying to figure it out together and it’s a fun group. I tend to be a trend watcher, thus I keep my finger on certain groups of people online. I’d encourage you to do the same with your chosen topic. Find out everything you can and meet the major players. Watch what they do and try to emulate what works. There’s no reason to reinvent the wheel, right?
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