Last year, I had a bold idea. It was to write a book that would help new writers make sense of the whole ‘writer’s platform’ thing. I’ve done quite a lot of work with internet marketing campaigns for clients in Australia, Singapore and Japan and thought that I could approach this as an internet marketing problem. What does a writer need to know about internet marketing to sell more books?
My research demonstrated that many new writers, when they start out self publishing, don’t really know of the black arts of internet marketing. They write their little book, enrol in KDP and wait for fame and fortune that never comes.
So I decided that was the perfect golden thread that would run through my book. An explanation to the new writer of how you can use basic internet market techniques to build an inexpensive writer’s platform AND hopefully sell more books.
I also had the brainwave of putting a landing page together to get pre-orders for the book to give me the motivation to get the book written and launched in a few short months.
Well, all great in theory, but as you know, sometimes theory doesn’t work out as planned. Remember, the original release date for the book was July 2019…
So, the months flew by. Suddenly 2020 was upon us in a raging end of days firestorm and CV pandemic. I lost my mojo – big time – which you may have picked up from the previous blog post…
A few months ago I reluctantly returned to the book and realised with the benefit of hindsight, that it was largely unpublishable. So, back to the drawing board. I essentially rewrote the entire thing chapter by chapter.
After 5 drafts and a going over by my very thorough editor Sue, FINALLY I think a book has been produced worthy of a readers time and investment. I’m quite proud of what we’ve achieved.
So that’s the back story of my little non-fiction project. The moral I guess is that writing non-fiction is really, really hard. Self publishing is harder, but when it all comes together, it’s strangely satisfying. I remain in awe of writers that can churn out non-fiction titles out year after year.
So, finally it’s out! On Kindle, POD and all good eBook booksellers. How to Build Your Writer’s Platform
I’m back in the game and now that I finally have this non-fiction work out of my system I can return to my SF novel The Watchers.
Believe me, making up stories is much, much easier…
Watch this space!