A writer needs a village - agents, editors, artists, craftsmen, publicists, readers, fans. Like raising a child, you need a village to publish your book.
As 2013 writers research all available information on the current industry buzzword "platform", we must be like the proverbial Arab: "If you seek wisdom, explore every tent in the bazaar."
Whether we sign on with the Big Six/Five/Four or the Independents, we must know the basics of this everchanging business.This is their business: Selling your book - selling YOU!
We need to cultivate people outside our intimate circles of first readers and social media followers.
We need to create a name brand for ourselves and our product.
Fans? We gotta develop 'em! And fan the fan flames!
We have to be flexible and bend with the market trends. We need another proverb at this point, one from Africa. "You cannot turn the wind, so turn the sail."
We need to develop novel ways of communicating, of bonding with potential fans and readers. Many successful bloggers interact with their commenters.
For hints on method, pull out that wonderfully chatty volume from 1936 – Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People. He wrote that book for 2013 Platforming! Especially for you and me.
Today we can't lean back and expect "the Company" is going to do our foot work.
We've poured heart and soul into our masterpiece - we've proved we can write a damngoodbook!
Now we need to create other layers and levels - blogs, websites, online chats, photos, above all, a solid core of loyal fans, who like OUR writing, like US and reallyreallyreally want US to succeed in this maelstrom of publishing!
Be sure to stop by my next blog post and meet a man who works with some of our favorite crime writers, a publicist at one of the biggest companies on the planet!
Thelma Straw
