Tag Archives: author platform

09.15.20
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Six Simple Steps to Literary Lionhood #6

Today we wrap up our series on “Six Simple Steps to Literary Lionhood.”

The final step is to build what is called an “author platform.”

Step Six: Build Your Platform

Suppose, Dear Reader, you have written a book. You have sold your book to a publisher. And your publication date is fast approaching.

Don’t bother. It’s been done.

Now comes the fun part. You and your publisher will strive to sell your book to hundreds—no, make that thousands—no, make that tens of thousands of people. 

Sounds like a big job, doesn’t it? And one which is not much related to the skills and urges that led you to write the book in the first place. (Unless, God help you, you wrote a book on how to market, platform, and sell a book.) 

But do not despair, Dear Reader.

There is a time-honored way to do this. 

Book Tour

Have your publisher send you, a publicist, and one or two assistants on a junket called a “book tour.” You will ravage all the major cities in the United States. Your publicist will have paved the way by arranging dates with the biggest newspapers, radio outlets, and TV stations. 

You will sit for magisterial interviews at each outlet and come back at the end of each triumphal day to a fine dinner, followed by exercise, massage, and sauna; after which you will retire to your well-appointed suite in a four-star hotel—a suite freshened with a new bouquet of roses and several bottles of Dom Perignon to celebrate your—well, let’s face it—to celebrate your celebrity. 

We are only kidding, Dear Reader. 

Launch Party

In the actual, dystopian world of today, your publisher will spring for exactly none of the aforementioned flourishes and furbelows. If you are lucky, the publisher will buy cookies and ginger ale and will help you arrange an indoor venue for your official book launch party, which will be counted a smashing success if two digits’ worth of loyal supporters show up to munch the Lorna Doones and a few of them buy copies of the book, which you will smilingly autograph for them. Unless, of course, you hold the darned thing on Zoom and refer attendees to a website where they may buy the Kindle version for the special introductory price of $0.00. 

About this, we are NOT kidding, Dear Reader

And, by the way, about one week after your book launch, the publisher will be off to the next book launch, featuring some other up-and-coming author.

But we repeat, do not despair. After all, we are here to help you through this dark valley.

Strategy

It helps to have a long-term strategy. Pause for a moment to reflect that most of a book’s sales do not occur at the launch party, or even during the first week.

Any book, successful or less successful, scores most of its sales weeks, months, and years after publication. And a prime factor in the strength of those sales, which can generate increasing royalty checks for you year after year, is, wait for it . . . dumb luck.

That’s right. You may get lucky and some random, unpredictable factor may cause people to buy your book. Or maybe not so much.

But rejoice! 

Because another, completely separate, prime determining factor is your own strategy, skill, and persistence in raising the profile of your book by building your author platform in the months before publication and the years after publication.

Platform

What is a platform?

Here’s an example: Suppose you commit a string of sensational murders before being caught  by the police after a highly-publicized and hazardous high-speed chase in a crowded tourist mecca like Niagara Falls or the Grand Canyon—or, better yet, Martha’s Vineyard or the Hamptons (the ones on Long Island, not the nationwide motel chain that offers free and usually satisfying breakfasts). 

Yes, make it the Hamptons, by all means. Because thereby you add snob appeal and a dash of carefree wealth to the revolting barbarity of your crime spree.

As soon as the police allow you to do so, call your lawyer. And make sure your lawyer calls an agent. Because there’s a sure-fire book in this.

We kid you not, Gentle Reader. Millions of people will shell out real U.S. simoleons for a book, almost any book, written by a notorious serial killer nabbed in a glamorous high-speed chase in a well-known playground of the rich. As long as your book has some tenuous connection with your celebrity. For instance, The Long Island Murder and Mayhem Guaranteed Weight Loss Cookbook. Perfect.*

* The asterisk to this particular achievement is that in most jurisdictions, crime is not allowed to pay. So the court will confiscate your million-dollar advance and distribute it to the families of your victims. (The Hamptons may be an exception, for all we know, Fair Reader. But don’t say we offered you any legal advice, because we will deny it. We would never think of doing such a thing even if we were allowed to, which we are not.)

But our point is: This would be a platform.

So now, to translate it into something where you are allowed to make money: Let’s say your crimes are only political. You are a major party candidate for president or any other high-profile political office. Perfect. Feel free to cash in by writing a book.

It’s a reliable platform—at least in the sense that the effete eastern snobs and nattering nabobs of negativism who run the Big Five publishing houses will pay you a million bucks up front—before a line is written. Whether any copies of your books get sold is surely beside the point.

“But what,” we hear you say, “what if my political appeal is limited and I can’t get on the ticket? What else might be a platform?” 

Well, perhaps you are a leading national authority on welded joints. You make fifty speeches a year to state welders’ associations. It’s an average of two hundred attendees per conference, and they all love you. Now suppose you write a book about about your favorite subject: Spot Welds, Brazes, and Heliarcs I Have Known; or, What Are You Doing in a Joint Like This?

You can probably sell twenty or thirty books after each speech, if you carry them with you in a cardboard box. You’ve got a platform. Your fame as a welding expert is your platform. In that case, we’d advise self-publishing, as long as your book is professionally done. Why split the profits with a traditional publisher?

You see how it works? 

Heavy Lifting

“What if I’m just the author of a book I enjoyed writing and want lots of people to read? I mean, I’m not a celebrity or a noted speaker with a built-in sales base.”

Then, Dear Reader, you will have to build yourself a platform, plank by plank.

There are lots of books and articles on how to build an author platform. Most of them recommend the heavy use of social media. We will not gainsay that. Social media can help you build a nationwide, even worldwide, coterie of friends who will encourage you. A few of them may even buy your book.

But you don’t have to be a whiz at Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or anything else like that to build a platform.

Unless there is something else you are widely noted for, your book itself will be the main plank in your platform. Once you have a book in print, you have something you can flog. You can, literally or figuratively, hold a copy up to the camera and say, “Buy this book!” 

The existence of your published book gives you a perfect reason to call podcasters and arrange to be interviewed about your book. Why podcasters? Because they are among the most powerful influencers in America today. Noted book marketing guru Dan Blank says, “Again and again, I hear from authors how they would get an appearance on a major TV morning show, and saw barely a blip in book sales. But that a podcast appearance would cause a huge ripple effect in their book sales.” 

For some reason, readers get attached to podcasts and give them their trust. So when you and your book appear on their favorite podcast, they are likely to buy the book. 

Podcasters are known in the marketing business as influencers. The same is true of bloggers. If you get the opportunity to do a guest blog, take it. What will it cost you? A few hundred well-considered words, that’s all. And those words can and should be about yourself, your passion, and your writings. 

Also, get yourself invited to every local book club you can. Now that we are all hooked on Zooming, you can even make this a national quest. If your book is chosen as book of the month by a book club, x readers will buy it just so they can take part in next month’s discussion. When you, The Author, appear and answer their questions, some of them will talk up your book to their friends, and you’ll get additional sales. 

Lastly, whenever you do one of these “influencer” gigs—a podcast, a guest blog, or a book club—mention it prominently in whatever social media posts you routinely do. In this way, with a little thought and careful coordination, you can build yourself a brand. 

If you have written an RGB (Really Good Book), then your efforts in the first year after publication will pay off handsomely down the road. Many books with sluggish but persistent sales in the first few years suddenly reached a take-off point purely by word of mouth after three to five years, much to their authors’ surprise.

When your first book has sold thousands of copies, that itself becomes another plank in your platform. People who liked your first book will be more likely to buy the second.

Disclaimer

With chagrin, Dear Reader, we must admit that what we have just written is, well, theoretical. In other words, that’s how it’s supposed to work. 

But we wouldn’t know, because our first book is yet to be published. We’re still working on that part.

Wish us luck.

Blessings,

Larry F. Sommers, Your New Favorite Author

Author of Price of Passage—A Tale of Immigration and Liberation.

Price of Passage

Norwegian Farmers and Fugitive Slaves in Pre-Civil War Illinois

BUY NOW

(History is not what you thought!)

08.04.20
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Six Simple Steps to Literary Lionhood

Today, as a public service (Ta-DA!), we begin a series of articles meant to help You, The Aspiring Author, conquer the himalayas of literary greatness. 

Actual Himalayas. Drukair, Bhutan. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

You’re welcome.

We propose that you achieve this impressive goal in SIX SIMPLE STEPS. 

“Simple” is not the same as “easy.” The six things you must do to pluck fame and fortune from the slushpile of rejected hopes are as simple as any six steps can be. 

If they were easy, everybody would be Stephen King.

Oh, do not ask, “What is it?” / Let us go and make our visit.

 (Literary Allusion Alert: File under “T.S. Eliot.”)
T.S. Eliot. Photo by Lady Ottoline Morrell. Public Domain.

Step One: Skip Straight to “Literary Lion”

Cut the line. 

Do not wait for greatness to be thrust upon you. Thrust it upon yourself. 

Since becoming a literary lion is your goal, go ahead and be one. Believe me, if you can’t do this one simple thing, you’re not going to find the other five steps any easier.

(Caveat: What We Are Not Saying. We are not saying “Fake it till you make it.” You can’t fake literary accomplishment. You have to get it the old-fashioned way, like the guy in that old commercial says. You have to earn it.)

If you haven’t begun to do so yet, then begin now.

You must do all kinds of inherently literary things. Such as, for example, “Write.” But that’s Step Two.

Meanwhile, there are a lot of other literary things you must do in addition to writing.

When you do them, as you must, you will be living the literary life—like it or not. 

Are you prepared for this?

You must read. We don’t mean just “read.” Everybody reads for fun, don’t they? 

(No, not actually. Lots of people never read anything more interesting than a cloned Facebook meme. But if you’re still with us, then you are probably one of those who do read, at least for fun.)

At the risk of repeating ourselves, we don’t mean just “read”—we mean READ. 

Read everything you can that’s a classic of your genre. And for balance, read things that are poorly-executed examples of your genre. Read things outside your genre entirely. 

Read books and articles on the art and craft of writing. Read pieces about the business of writing, and how to sell your work. 

Read books, stories, articles, and blog posts by friends (more on this in “Step 3: Get Feedback” and “Step 4: Associate”). Read your own work, with a view to improving it. Read miscellaneous books that come to your attention, just because somebody said they were good.

Read good literature. It may help you figure out how to write good literature.

Larry F. Sommers,

An up-and-coming writer of our acquaintance, Larry F. Sommers, testifies:

“I was seventy years old before I got serious about writing. I thought I was quite a reader, but since becoming a literary lion, I’ve averaged fifty to seventy-five books a year—not to mention stories, articles, and poems.”

When you read this much, two things will happen: (1) Your library card will get threadbare from use. (2) Partly-finished, recently finished, and not-yet-started books will occupy every horizontal surface in your vicinity. Welcome to literary lionhood.

Lion. Photo by Kevin Pluck, licensed under CC BY 2.0.

(Lionhood is the state of being a lion—a literary one, in our case. Lionization—Haha!—maybe in the Afterlife.)

You must gather your tools about you. There are certain things you will need. Some of them cost money, and you must be prepared to invest in them. 

You need a good, standard dictionary such as Webster’s New World College Dictionary or even the Oxford English Dictionary if you can afford it. Either hardcopy or electronic version will cost money. (The many freebie dictionaries found online are about worth what you pay for them.) 

You will need the latest edition of the Chicago Manual of Style. It’s the starting point on important matters of style for nearly all publishers. But you also need a copy of Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style, which in some particulars contradicts the Chicago manual; it’s still worth owning for its brief but powerful advice on how to write the English language. And you will want at least a couple of writers’ magazines; we recommend The Writer and Writer’s Digest for starters.

In order to get your work widely read, you will need to sell it. Therefore you will want some useful compendia of marketing information, such as Writer’s Market or Writer’s Handbook; Jeff Herman’s Guide To Book Publishers, Editors and Literary Agents; and a $25 monthly subscription to the enormously useful PublishersMarketplace website.

Basic tools of craft are needed just for getting your words down on paper (or its electronic equivalent). Some particular brand of laptop computer, let’s say; or a ruled notebook and pens or pencils of a certain kind; or an antique Underwood typewriter; or goose quills. Every writer has his or her own preferred substrate. But whatever it is, you need to have it, so you can, you know, write (see “Step Two: Write”).

We seriously recommend a good computer and a copy of Microsoft Word. If you originate your manuscripts in any other medium or format, you will still need to copy it over to a computer file before a publisher can use it to bring you lots of fame and fortune. But suit yourself.

You must make your presence known. This falls, really, into “Step 6: Platform.” But the problem is, you can’t wait till the end of the process to build your platform. You’ve got to start now.

A writer’s “platform” is simply the sum total of credible ways by which that writer makes his or her work known to the world. If you’re a major motion picture star, all you have to do is write a book and let the publicist mention it to the world. You have millions of adoring fans already; some of them will buy your book.

For those of us who are not celebrities, it’s harder. You have to acquire fans one at a time and keep them interested in you and your writing until you can publish a book and press it into their hot little hands. It takes time for an unknown author to build a following of people who can be relied on to buy a book. Start now.

You make your presence known by authoring a blog; by frequenting one or more social media engines such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, etc.; by showing up at writerly events in your vicinity, such as book signings and readings, literary chats, etc.; or by attending writers’ courses and conferences. 

As you do these things, more and more people will begin to recognize you as a fixture of that part of the world they think of as “literary.” That’s good. That’s what you want.

You must write. This is self-evident, but we include it here because it is an essential part of becoming a literary lion. “Essential” in this case means, “You cannot omit it.”

But never fear. The writing part is so important we devote an entire step to it. In fact, the very next one in this series, “Step Two: Write.” 

So here and now it suffices to say that writing is the quintessential literary activity. The more time you spend writing, the more time you spend in the world of the literary lion.

THEREFORE, Dear Reader:  When you faithfully practice these key disciplines of literary lionhood—reading, gaining possession and use of essential literary tools, making your presence known in literary venues, and actually spending regular amounts of time writing your work—you will not have to pinch yourself, or poke yourself in the eye (which we would not recommend in any case) to know that you are living the literary life. 

You will have stepped into the Twilight Zone which is the literary world, on your way to the base camp for scaling the literary himalayas.

Bon voyage.

NEXT INSTALLMENT: “Step Two: Write” 

Blessings,

Larry F. Sommers, Your New Favorite Author

Author of Price of Passage—A Tale of Immigration and Liberation.

Price of Passage

Norwegian Farmers and Fugitive Slaves in Pre-Civil War Illinois

BUY NOW

(History is not what you thought!)

03.03.20
by

Birth of a Book, Part 2

You were regaled last week with the tale of how I became a full-time writer and embarked on a major work of historical fiction. (If by chance you missed out on this gripping account, you can make up for lost time here.)

My novel, Freedom’s Purchase, tells of a young man, Anders, and a young woman, Maria, who sail from Norway to America and settle in Central Illinois just before the Civil War. Those were years when our nation was in great turmoil, when slave hunters roamed the prairie looking for escapees from Southern plantations, or even for free blacks they could kidnap into slavery. It was inevitable that my characters, Anders and Maria, would come in conflict with Slavery and its minions.

Anders and Maria are based on my real-life ancestors—but they are wholly fictional characters. In other words, they are not the real Anders Gunstensen and Maria Nybro from whom I am descended. But there is some basis, you see, in the common usages of our common past. 

A Norwegian woman about to start for America bidding her people farewell. Stereopticon card. From Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain.

Immigrant Saga

While starting to work out the plot for my novel, I attended the University of Wisconsin – Continuing Studies Program’s annual “Write by the Lake” conference; my breakout was a workshop on “Know Your Genre,” taught by Laurie Scheer. We learned what genres are: Mainly, they are categories that allow agents and publishers to know how to pitch your story, and booksellers to know where to shelve it. I told Laurie my idea for a historical novel about Norwegian immigrants in the time of the Civil War. 

“An immigrant saga!” she said. 

“Yes,” I said. “That’s it.” 

She encouraged me to write it. Because of her encouragement, I started to think, “Maybe I could.”

How to Be a Writer, in 1,672 Easy Lessons

I was finding my niche. I had taken T.S. Eliot’s lines as my watchword—

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring 
Will be to arrive where we started 
And know the place for the first time. 

By the time I began writing the first draft of Anders and Maria, I had hooked up with a great writing critique group, Tuesdays With Story. We meet twice a month, under the leadership of Jerry Peterson—to read and comment on one another’s work. This task is indispensable to any writer who is serious about developing his or her craft. You need to hear just how your work strikes someone who does not have the big advantage you have—the advantage of living inside your own mind and already knowing what it is you’re trying to convey. It’s all too easy to write things that convey to readers something other than what you intended. The Tuesdays with Story Group is a valuable backstop.

Also, to be a writer in today’s market, you must become a Major Literary Figure on day one. Besides writing and revising your own work, you spend many hours reading and commenting on other people’s work. You do theirs because they do yours; one hand washes the other. 

But you also find yourself constantly immersed in many already-published books, both within and outside of your genre. The good, the bad, and the ugly. You can learn something from each one of them, Grasshopper.

And let’s not forget magazines—The Writer and Writer’s Digest—which are de rigeur, and conferences, such as “Write by the Lake” and the UW’s annual spring Writers’ Institute. A good writers’ conference brings together hundreds of people who share this creepy compulsion to put words on paper and have people read them. 

The first time I attended the UW Writers’ Institute, in 2018, I knew right away I had found my tribe. We are all different, yet all the same. We have to write. Whether or not we’re any good at it. Whether or not we can sell it. Whether or not we grab the brass ring of fame and fortune. 

Later this month I will attend my third Writers’ Institute. I will see old friends and make new ones. I will pitch my book to bona fide literary agents and learn new and better ways to navigate the literary marketplace. 

Standing on a Platform

Above all, experts say, “an author needs a platform.” But “platform” has no exact definition. Arnold Palmer, the golfer, had a platform, only it was called an army—“Arnie’s Army,” thousands of devoted fans who showed up and paid good money to follow Arnie across any golf course, in fair weather or foul, whether he was shooting well or ill. That is a platform. 

Say you’re famous. You’re Hillary Clinton, or Donald Trump, or Wayne Gretzky, or Ellen DeGeneres. You already have a platform. Just whisper a hint that you might write a book, and top publishers will give you a seven-figure advance.

If you’re a regular person and just hope somebody will read your book, a platform is harder to come by. If you’re already a published author, that’s a start. Readers who loved your cozy mystery The Chocolate Cake Caper might also buy The Apple Pie Fiasco. But if you’re not famous and have nothing in print, then all you have is friends and family. And—what else?—Social Media.

So, about the time I started writing Freedom’s Purchase, I added a “Larry F. Sommers, Writer” page to my Facebook presence. I didn’t know what I would do with it, and in truth, I have not done much. But I use it now and then to mention some little victory or struggle in my ongoing quest as a writer. Right now there are 227 followers on that page. I also have 611 friends on my regular Facebook page. What does that mean? It just means I have friends and followers. Which is good, right? (If you’re not already a friend and follower, I invite you to hop on the bandwagon at https://www.facebook.com/larryfsommers and https://www.facebook.com/LarryFSommersWriter/.)

Into the Blogosphere

Then, about a year ago, I decided to launch this blog. Let me assure you, Kind Reader, I did not do so lightly. 

Some folks told me, “Oh, a blog is so easy! No trouble, no time, a lead-pipe cinch.” 

“2-13-08: Falling Off the Turnip Truck” by rrllmm392 is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0 

Well, Gentle Reader, Your New Favorite Writer is not among those who just fell off the turnip truck yesterday. No, sir. I knew it would be a grind. Nothing worthwhile is accomplished without significant time and effort.

I decided to do it anyway, because: This blog—titled “Reflections” and subtitled “seeking fresh meanings in our common past”—is not just a promotional device for my novel. Rather, it is a way to relate directly with you and others who like to read about old times and ponder what meanings we might derive from them. So it is not only a way to promote my writing; it IS my writing, so far more than 50,000 words and counting.

Though I approached the project with trepidation, I have been pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoy doing it. Especially I enjoy getting hints from time to time that my work has really connected with a reader. When I read a comment on my blog, or on my Facebook page, that just makes my day. Especially when that person says, “Your story reminded me of . . .”—and then proceeds to tell me a little story from their own experience and recollection. What I wrote stimulated their thoughts about their own past and its meaning.

That is why I am doing it, friends.

So I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you’ll spread the word to others—by mentioning this “Reflections” blog at https://LarryFSommers.com, by sharing it on Facebook, by tweeting it on Twitter, or whatever. And I hope you’ll come back often. We’ll explore a diverse range of human experiences and try to puzzle them out together. And when Freedom’s Purchase—or my new novel, which is completely different—is published, you’ll be among the first to know.

Until then, happy reading, and 

Blessings,

Larry F. Sommers, Your New Favorite Writer

Author of Price of Passage—A Tale of Immigration and Liberation.

Price of Passage

Norwegian Farmers and Fugitive Slaves in Pre-Civil War Illinois

BUY NOW

(History is not what you thought!)