mistakes to avoid – Almost An Author

My Author Platform Mistakes and How To Avoid Them

You hear it at every writers’ conference—Platform Is Important! Long before you have a book published, you need to be thinking about and building your author platform.

True.

However, I wish I hadn’t rushed into into creating a website, blog, or author social media accounts without considering why I was doing it.

“I’m doing this to build platform” isn’t a sufficient reason

Maybe the root problem was I didn’t understand what building an author platform really meant. I thought it was about numbers. Create a bunch of social media accounts and collect as many followers as you can.

Done.

Except, after I created them, I had no idea what to do with them. No strategy. No purpose. No obvious topics or themes. Nada.

I was working on a historical mystery set in ancient Rome, but I’m not a history expert, or a writing expert. Thus, neither history nor writing tips seemed like the right content for me.

Which left … ?? (Scripture quotes? Flash fiction? Life lessons from my kids? Photos of the coffee I’m drinking while I write?)

Does my quandary sound familiar?

Understanding the real purpose of those platform components

Pop Quiz: The purpose of an author’s blog, website, and social media accounts is to:

Amass impressive follower numbers
Promote all my awesome writing stuff
Tell the world about my writing process and show funny photos of my cat
Serve the reader by offering helpful or inspiring content

The answer may seem obvious, but when I was a budding fiction writer, precisely what helpful or inspiring content I was supposed to be offering was anything but obvious.

I was clueless. I tried a bit of this and a pit of that, but nothing really clicked.

So I blundered around, trying a bit of this and a bit of that and by process of elimination I eventually narrowed my blogging focus to intentional living (which, you may note, has nothing whatsoever to do with either ancient Rome or mystery writing).

An author platform needs a firm foundation

Have you ever tried to write an article, and you can’t seem to get your thoughts to work together? When I have that problem, it’s usually because I don’t have the single main point clear in my head.

The same is true for an author platform. The more clarity you have in your specific target audience and the specific topics/themes/issues you are called to write about, the easier it becomes to provide content that is both relevant and builds confidence in your author brand.

Your author brand is the perception of what you are about, based on your content.

If your content isn’t consistent, nobody can figure out what you stand for, so they had little reason to keep reading my stuff.

Here’s the key concept I was missing

The goal of building an author platform isn’t to collect as many random followers as we can. The goal is to collect readers who want to come back regularly to see our content.

Why do those readers choose to give their precious attention to our content instead of the zillion other options? Because they have learned they can count on us to consistently offer interesting, relevant, encouraging content on topics they care about.

We earn readers trust by consistently offering the content they find useful. That consistency only comes when we’ve discovered our content sweet spot and are intentional about focusing our content within that niche.

Your platform isn’t built in a day

If you’re just starting your writing journey, you probably don’t yet have this all figured out. That’s normal. You might need to experiment with different types of content for a while before you find your stride.

However, experiment intentionally. Your goal is to zero in on the content that you are passionate about creating and identifying the specific audience that most benefits from what you write.

The sooner you find your sweet spot, the less time you waste writing meh content and the quicker you can begin collecting readers who are actual fans of your content and brand.

Your Turn

Can you articulate what your author platform is about in 1-2 sentences? If not, take a stab at it and consider that your starting point.

Pray about it. Ask God to clarify the specifics of what he’s calling you to write and who he’s calling you to write it for.

Get in the habit of regularly asking yourself questions like these to continually hone your clarity.

Which subjects can I not help getting excited about?
What have I learned from coming through trauma that I can share with others?
When people think of me and my content, I want them to use words like ___ .
What is the common thread in the various things I love to write about?
What issues do people bring up repeatedly when they come to me for advice or help? (face-to-face or virtually)

Lisa E. Betz is an award-winning mystery author, entertaining speaker, and an unconventional soul. She combines her love of research with her quirky imagination to bring the world of the world of the early church to life. She infuses her novels with unconventional characters who thrive on solving tricky problems. Her second novel, Fountains and Secrets, was recently named a finalist in both the Golden Scroll and Christian Market Book Awards.

She also blogs about the joys and challenges of living an authentic, purpose-filled life. Lisa and her husband reside in southeast Pennsylvania with Scallywag, their rambunctious cat—the inspiration for Nemesis, resident mischief maker in the Livia Aemilia Mysteries. Lisa directs church dramas, eats too much chocolate, and experiments with ancient Roman recipes. Visit her Quietly Unconventional website at lisaebetz.com or check her Facebook page at LisaEBetzWriter.

Writing a First Novel: Ten Mistakes Not to Make

There’s no one right way to write a novel, but there are plenty of wrong ways! Here’s a few common mistakes to steer clear of to make the path a little smoother.

Structure your novel.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a pantser or a plotter, your main character needs to have a compelling goal.

With my first try at a character driven book, my MC had plenty of internal motivation but no external motivation. Nailing down GMC, goal, motivation, conflict helped. Identify the GMC of a story before starting the first or second draft. Getting the GMC nailed down helps me keep my story on track and saves a lot of grief and time wasted rewriting.

Develop the characters.

Sometimes the story idea is fantastic and all is in place, but the characters fall flat. Characters should be relatable and realistic. One of my characters was meant to be crabby due to grief, but just came off as crabby and nothing else. Rewriting her wasn’t horribly hard, and the character is much more likable and relatable now.

Find the right point of view.

Try out different points of view. Choose the one that suits the story best, or choose the POV that works best for you as a writer. Originally, I almost always wrote my fiction in first person, but it was short fiction and not a novel.

I got advice from a writing mentor and was told to write in third person past.

Unfortunately, third person past didn’t work for me. The stories were okay, but even after writing complete novels in third person, something wasn’t right. I rewrote all my books into first person past and it was like breathing clean air. It would have been much easier to write a few chapters in different POVs and pick the best one from the start.

A different book may require a different POV from your usual, so don’t be afraid to test out the first chapter in various POVs before settling on one.

Don’t head hop.

Stay in one character’s point of view during a single scene. Omniscient POV and head hopping are two different things. Study up and learn the difference before using this as an excuse.

Don’t write about a topic you hate to research.

You would think this would be obvious, however it was not. I wanted to write an emotional story about grief. In order to do that, I needed to research medical conditions. I love to research all sorts of things, but death is not one of them. However, my heart wanted to write a book to comfort, so if I considered my goal, the research was tolerable.

Keep yourself organized.

Use a running list and/or pictures of people, settings, and items important to your story to help write consistent descriptions. Those blue eyes turning brown halfway through a manuscript is a common problem. If you have a series, you can keep a story Bible. This is a document to keep all the details straight.

Make a timeline.

If the story takes place over an extended period of time, evade headaches and make a timeline. This way strange weather anomalies such as snowfall in May and other time bending occurrences can be avoided.

Ask for feedback from the right sources.

Find some people who can provide useful feedback and encouragement.

Don’t share your work with the wrong people. Do not take to heart advice from people who do not read in your genre.

Shun Negative Nellies who have nothing good to say about anything. Constructive criticism is the only useful criticism.

The ideal writing buddies give useful feedback and do it in a respectful way.

Don’t query too soon.

When is too soon? That’s hard to say. Usually, it’s not wise to query your first novel, but there are always exceptions. This is rare.

I queried too soon, but once I realized my mistake, I’d lost those opportunities.

If you’re not sure, enter a few contests that provide critique-type feedback or use a critiquing service outside of the people who love you. Anonymous services sometimes provide a bit more honesty than your writing friends.

Trust your heart.

Don’t try to write a story you don’t love. It will show. Writing to the market may seem like a good idea, but if the author doesn’t feel connected to the characters, the reader won’t either. Writing a novel length work is a long-term commitment. Love the story and characters enough to stick with it.

Do you have any tips or experiences to share? Leave a comment.

Donna Jo Stone writes YA contemporary novels about tough issues but always ends the stories with a note of hope. She blogs at donnajostone.com.