Blogs, Authors, Platforms and Publishing

This coming month, we will be writing about blogs and authors.  It is not easy be a writer, and there is an important part of writing which most people tend to forget.  They need to have a voice — not just a voice in the ‘real world’ but a voice online.

I know that it is not easy to publish a book, and it is harder to get people to read more if your first book isn’t “up to par”, but the flip side of that is when you don’t let people know about your work.

By this, I mean that you are complaining to family and close friends that no one is buying a copy of your book and then, in the same voice, admitting that you don’t have a website.  I know that it is time consuming — writing, editing, designing a cover — but I also know that without a platform, whatever you publish won’t be seen.

Ever heard of Problogger? I am sure many people have, but if not problogger is one of the premier blogging websites on the Internet dealing with making money blogging- Darren Rowe, the chief writer- and it is the ‘go to’ source for bloggers on making money. I have also read the book that two of the writers from problogger wrote. I found out about the book because mentioned it to me. I found their website, and bought a book.  The point is that I found something outside of a bookstore and on the web.  Although I did go and read it at a bookstore, I did go and buy it online.

Problogger, and the book Aiming at Amazon do well because people know about them both online and offline.  The more important part is that the readers related to them and they have a strong networking system.

I also learn a great deal about blogging from simply being online, and writing about it on my blog.  I also have more people that I can get to “know” and work with.

 I wouldn’t have this blogging platform otherwise and it would take a lot of time to get things done if I didn’t have this.  I would be working harder to get sales and readers.  I certainly wouldn’t be working smarter, but I have learned the value of networking and the value of a platform — a lot sooner than I would otherwise.

This is why writing a blog is important, and this is where I learned to bounce ideas off of other authors who have experience with marketing or networking or other parts of publishing that I otherwise wouldn’t have time to find out about by error. (I don’t want to find out things by error this way!)  I have to get to my readers, and not learn it the wrong way.

Are you ready to take that next step?  Do you know what you need to do?  If you answered yes or no, it’s time to take a bit of a journey into the unknown, and see what can be found.