Welcome back to guest blogger, A.P. Fuchs. He's spent well over a decade in the business and has seen many trends come and go. Thanks for sharing with all the readers at Operation Awesome!
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All right,
let’s talk straight. Specifically, let’s talk author platforms. You’ve read the
articles. You’ve been told how important they are. You’ve been given a list of
what to include. Heck, you’ve even taken all that information to heart and
acted upon it.
And the
book sales aren’t happening.
So you keep
at it, hoping one day it’ll all pay off. Day in and day out you bust your tail
on social media and the Web only to keep missing your goal sales-wise. Or,
perhaps, you hit it some months and others you wonder what it’s all for.
Frustration sets in and you don’t know what’s going on. You did what Author A
said. You got your Facebook page, your Twitter account, your blog, your
Instagram and all the others—yet still you’re just another author voice
shouting into the storm.
Here’s the
issue: you’re following someone else’s advice. Worse, you’re following it to
the letter and in the game of publishing, following the author platform advice
to a T is a death sentence.
This is
why:
▪ Publishing
is a giant crapshoot. There is no sure-fire way to do anything. Anyone who
tells you otherwise is either lying or trying to sell you something. While true
there are basics and groundwork you can lay, that’s all those things are. Yes,
your standard author platform recipe should be part of your game plan. That’s
no different than saying you want to sell your book but you know you can’t sell
your manuscript as is. You need to make it pretty and put it between two covers
before you can do so. That’s a given. The basics.
▪ The
standard author platform isn’t working for you is because you aren’t making it yours. You’re making it like someone
else’s or, simply, following the basic recipe without adding the personal tender
loving touch that makes your cookies taste better than the other guy’s.
This is how
to fix the issue, written step-by-step, but don’t treat it like an instruction
manual. Customization, you know?
Step one:
Lay down
the standard recipe. All good baking has a fairly consistent base across the
board. Have your Facebook page, your Twitter, blog, Instagram and all that.
Customize each page and make it about you and your books then commit to a Web
plan where you’re active on each on a regular basis.
Step two:
Start
adding the TLC. Don’t make your Facebook page like Joe Famous’s. Make it like yours.
I hate the
word “brand” when it comes to this author stuff. It turns us into a product
and, frankly, art is never about product. It can become a product, but should
never be a product. See the
difference? This world is sickly loaded with consumerism and people pushing
products non-stop twenty-four hours a day. Most of us have tuned out the
racket. But what draws us and captures our attention? Unique items and unique
people. This so-called “brand” you’re supposed to become? How about voice? After all, your voice is what
makes your art what it is to begin with. Why turn that off when sharing it with
people?
So . . .
Format and
design your pages to reflect you and
your books. Don’t be all authorish. Don’t be all bookish. Don’t make people
feel like they’re in a stuffy library when they visit you on the Web. In other
words, don’t be so professional you come off as cold. Cold people suck.
Into baking
or crafts? Build that into your page designs and content.
Into
superheroes and comics? Put up some indie superhero character art as part of
your banner and pictures.
Into sci-fi
and tech? Give your page(s) a mechanical flare and make the electro-junkies
squee on the inside when they visit you.
Into
horror? Spook it up, man.
Get the
idea?
Step three:
With your on-line
base of operations already established, leave it alone for a bit and start
playing around with other marketing ideas.
Some items
. . .
▪ Set up
book signings. Table at conventions. Hook up with some craft shows and flea
markets. Arrange a book tour, say, local at first then, depending on success,
look at traveling out-of-province/state, even country.
▪ Set
yourself up as a unique property at
these events. Don’t just have a plain table. Add some posters and signage. Add
some props. Display your books in a pyramid-like tower. Stand out. Fool around.
Don’t be the lonely author who sits there with a handful of books laid out
boring and flat in front of them, longingly gazing at the passersby, your eyes
pleading, “Please come talk to me. Please come buy my book.” I mean, you took
all this time to personalize your on-line presence, why wouldn’t you do the
same for your off-line one?
▪ Casually
bring up you’re an author into everyday conversations. You can subtly work your
pitch into whatever you’re talking about with someone—choose appropriately, of
course—and at a bare minimum leave them with a business card. But have books
on-hand or in your car in case a sale is to be made. Trust me, it happens.
▪ Go to
open mic nights and share story excerpts or poetry. This is your chance to pimp
your work, network and perhaps get hired for new projects.
▪ Do
workshops.
And a
thousand other things. These examples are to make this point: lay your
groundwork—that author platform—then play around with other marketing avenues.
You’ll be surprised what works. You’ll also be surprised at what doesn’t
because what works for Author A doesn’t always work for Author B.
Book
marketing is all about customization. It’s about finding what works for you and
putting energy into those things while discarding the things that don’t after
you’ve given them a fair chance (i.e. six months to a year or something). And
you know what? Even that thing you did that didn’t work for your first novel
might be the goldmine that works for your second one. Each book is different.
Even each book in a series is different.
Authors
want the easy way out. “I just want to write,” they say. Well, if that were
really true, you wouldn’t be publishing as well, right?
Or they
want to be told what to do: that standard author platform recipe. Come on. How
can you be so creative in fiction then totally useless outside of it? Don’t you
know your life is a story and so is your book career? That creative flare that
you put on the page can be used off of it, too. Stop thinking inside of your
book and start thinking outside of it.
After this
article is drafted, my plan for the day is to revisit my platform, one that
I’ve already customized to me over the years—self-publishing since 2004—and take
inventory on what’s working and what isn’t. I’m going to make some changes and
try new things. Going to add my own TLC instead of relying on the standard
Author Platform recipe.
I’m eager
to see how these cookies turn out. I already know my zombie chocolate chip ones
are dead ringers for a win and my Axiom-man cookies are super.
Screw the
standard author platform. It’s boring and useless. But your own? The one with
your personal touch?
That’s
something special.
Get to it.
About the Author:
An independent writer and cartoonist, A.P. Fuchs has been part of the
underground publishing scene for twelve years. He is the author of more than
forty books, loads of comics, short stories and poetry, and has a weekly
newsletter called The Canister X
Transmission, in which he currently discusses publishing and marketing
tips, past work, indie creator spotlights and whatever’s on his mind that week.
Heck, he’s so passionate about writing and publishing he even wrote several
books on the subject, one a collection of the first year of his weekly
newsletter, another called Getting Down
and Digital: How to Self-publish Your Book. Plus a few others. Sign up for
his newsletter at www.tinyletter.com/apfuchs and get a free thriller
e-novelette out of the deal, and be sure to visit him on-line at his main hub
at www.canisterx.com
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