The One Thing I Wish I Knew Before I Started Writing Commercially

Before we write a single word we need to have this in place first

I’m an indie author, so I come to you from that perspective. Anecdotally, what I’m about to tell you will apply to traditionally published books as well.

This is a story about creating commercial work. If you want to create a piece of writing purely for the art and joy of the process, then ignore everything I say here. However, if you’re writing book you intend to sell to more than one person, I hope my mistake will help you avoid it.

Successful publishing is all about the platform.

I waited too long to build mine and now I’m chasing the dragon. I launched my first novel to a tiny list of 300 people. That might sound big if you have zero platform, but it was enough to sell only 50 copies during my book launch.

Like the old saying for planting trees — the best time to build your platform was ten years ago. The second best time is NOW.

I started both my platform and my novel, simultaneously. I thought it would be cool to document the process and share it with my would-be readers, who’d be so excited to buy my book, because they had watched the process as the work evolved. My idea didn’t work.

When should you start?

I can’t squeeze the toothpaste back in the tube. My book’s on the shelf. However, if I had to do it all over again, I’d work to build my platform before I wrote word-one of my novel.

For some reason many authors avoid marketing, like it’s anti-creative, or it will scar the writing process. The only authors who should avoid marketing are the ones who don’t want to sell their books.

Your reader’s attention is under constant attack. Her phone buzzes with notifications from a dozen apps, her Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Netflix, podcast feed, inbox, DMs, and shopping carts are all in battle for her attention.

As a writer you’re buying your reader’s time.

Your physical product is inexpensive. Books are twenty dollars or less. Authors aren’t selling real estate, cars, or fine jewelry. What we do is buy our reader’s time. Books are cheap. Your customers will not hesitate to buy our book if we do our job right on the front-end.

Building a platform is daunting. There’s a sea of people doing it better than you. They have a bigger audience. They have it figured out and you don’t. But you have something in common with them all. You will start from zero. They started from zero.

Your platform isn’t optional.

If you want your work to reach your readers you’ve got to build a platform. A platform is non-negotiable if you want commercial success — NON-NEGOTIABLE. Whether you go the traditionally published route or indie, you must have a platform.

The good news is many of the biggest authors on the New York Times list have yet to grasp this. You’re not too late. Since I’ve started I’ve built a social following bigger than many of my favorite authors. They sold more books, but my direct reach is bigger.

What’s a platform?

Your platform is the virtual coffee shop where you sit down with one fan at a time and have a personal conversation — en masse. This is important to note: it’s a personal conversation, not a BULK fire-hosing of content.

Your platform may include social, video, audio, and email. But everything you do on the platform has the sole purpose of growing your brand and giving to your audience so hard it hurts.

How do I build my author’s platform?

The biggest piece of advice I can offer is to ensure you OWN your customer list. Most people build a Facebook page or Instagram page and work 100% on building their following on these platforms, while growing nothing they can take with them.

What happens when Facebook disappears? You’ll lose your entire business. It’s not a question of if it’s a question of when. These platforms won’t last forever. Someone will do it better and there will be a mass-exodus to the next big thing.

Instead of losing your audience overnight, you need to funnel your customers over to your email list. Yes, you MUST build a social presence on at least one platform, but you need to funnel these people onto an email list you own.

Facebook and Twitter (and everyone) own their platforms. It’s the goal of these businesses to keep people on the platform as long as possible, not to provide you with a place to sell stuff. These platforms change the rules all the time, to make more money for their business, not yours.

You can’t just build a platform and expect people to follow you.

You must GIVE first, for a long time, before you have any right to your reader’s most valuable asset. Think of it this way —

If you were walking down the street and someone you never met grabbed your arm, pulled you into a small room, and announced “I need eight hours of your time, uninterrupted,” you’d call the police.

Yet, this is what we try and do when we cold-sell books to our readers. I’m just as guilty of this, but I’m getting better. Before you have a right to ask for their attention you’ve got to give first.

Here are the steps to build your author platform:

1. Create a valuable gift (worth real money) that you can give in exchange for your reader’s email. Not sample chapters. Not “click here to join my newsletter.” But “If you’re kind enough to give me your attention I’ll give you this short story, or full novel.”
2. Build an email platform with an actual email service. Don’t do this through your Gmail account. You’ve got to pay a little money and use a real email delivery service.
3. Write a series of emails that are vulnerable and personal, to one reader at a time. Don’t write like a used car salesman. Be yourself. Write in your conversational voice. It’s a conversation with a friend, over coffee.
4. Include additional, surprise, valuable gifts delivered at periodic intervals. This is your platform and you want to keep your readers engaged.
5. Email them frequently. You cannot let your reader forget your out there creating work she would really enjoy. Most authors only email their readers when they have something to sell. This is a terrible strategy. Remember, this is a never-ending conversation over coffee.
6. Send your social following to your valuable gift. The goal is NOT to build the biggest social following you can build. The goal is to own your customer list and continue the conversation.
7. Only ask for the sale after the relationship is established. Remember the arm-grabber above. Don’t be that person. You hate that person, so why would your customer like it.

Why email?

Isn’t email is so 20 years ago? Not quite. First, many people think this so you’ll have the advantage when Facebook fails. Second, all the social platforms are designed to distract you. It’s very hard for people engage with long-form content on social. Your posts last seconds then their gone to the ether.

Email is different. Your reader opens her email when she’s got time to dedicate. She’s a READER, therefor she doesn’t mind reading. All these social posts are visual, but as authors, we serve people who read… so give them something to read.

Yes, most of your emails will never be opened — deleted on sight. But that small percentage of your readers who do open your emails have joined the conversation. They pulled up a chair and entered the conversation.

Don’t take this attention for granted.

If you appreciate your reader’s attention and treat her the way you want to be treated, you’ll keep your audience until you do something to make them angry and leave.

It’s time to build your platform. Put down your manuscript and build your customer list as big as possible. When you’re finally ready to launch your book you won’t make the mistake I made. I yelled “buy my book” into an empty room and I got an empty room’s worth of sales.

I will not let this happen again. Neither should you. It’s time.

We’re waiting for you.

August Birch (AKA the Book Mechanic) is both a fiction and non-fiction author from Michigan, USA. A self-proclaimed guardian of writers and creators, August teaches indie authors how to write books that sell and how to sell more of those books once they’re written. When he’s not writing or thinking about writing August carries a pocket knife and shaves his head with a safety razor.

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