Building Your Audience as a New Writer: Tips from the Pros!

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As some of you know, I am currently in school full-time pursuing my Bachelors in Creative Writing with a minor in Graphic Design. My current course, ENG 421, is challenging us to create a successful writer's platform, part of which includes researching other writers and how they utilized new media to market themselves and build their audience. As a new writer, it is important to learn how to market yourself and build your audience up to create a successful following. In my current course, New Media Writing/Publishing, we were instructed to look into case studies of authors who successfully marketed themselves using new media. My two chosen writers, Sarah Pekkanen and Brette Sember, both displayed different ways to reach out to and increase their audiences while maintaining their unique writers identities. Here are my thoughts and opinions of their audience growing methods:

The first case study I chose was on fiction writer Sarah Pekkanen. Her case study was extremely interesting to me, and her writer’s platform is insanely enviable. She devised a plan to spike the Amazon sales of her story before it came out by holding a contest for a prize package if people pre-ordered her story. Jennifer Weiner, another well-known fiction writer, heard of Sarah’s plan and decided to donate a signed copy of her new book to each person who pre-ordered Pekkanen’s story. The pre-sales were through the roof. The biggest thing I took away from her case study and her writer’s platform is that networking is key, and to put yourself out there in new and unique ways. Sarah’s idea to give away a prize package to entice people to pre-order ended up drawing the attention of someone with major influence, who ended up helping her sell many more books than she may originally have been able to sell. Another thing that Pekkanen was very adamant about was her interaction with her fans and followers. She has a very active presence on social media and finds it imperative to stay in contact with her fans at all times. Her technique stresses the importance of getting out onto social media and getting active with fans to draw them in and keep them interested. One of the books I chose in my 1-3 Needs Analysis Milestone was God Hates Us All by Hank Moody (Jonathan Grotenstein, Simon Spotlight Entertainment/Showtime Networks, Inc, 2009). The book is actually from the hit Showtime show Californication and is the novel that the main character, Hank Moody, wrote that really made him famous. Though he is not a “real” author, Hank Moody has a Facebook presence and posts quotes and pictures that embody the same attitude and tone as the book and as the show. Pekkanen’s extremely active social media presence would bode well for a sarcastic and witty author like Hank Moody, so increased social media presence would really draw in more and more readers, much like with writer Chuck Wendig. I chose this case study because Pekkenan’s writer’s platform is exactly what I would like mine to resemble once complete, and the Hank Moody novel/online presence was chosen because I enjoy his sarcastic, witty tone and style, and try to incorporate that into some of my writing, depending on the subject and focus.

The second case study I chose was on Brette Sember, an author who focuses on cooking, lifestyle and finance, with an active website and blog, as well as an active social media presence. Sember’s webpage – Martha and Me – focuses on the year-long apprenticeship that Sember served under Martha Stuart and details how it shaped her now well-known career. This writer’s platform was also very impressive, and her constant activity on her blog and website keeps her audience interested and growing. Her techniques of getting online and on social media every day to stay in touch with fans is a great idea, and something I am trying to do better with on my own blog. I am famous for getting a few ideas and running with them – posting several days in a row, then I hit a wall and don’t have any new ideas and the blog gets shoved to the back-burner for a while. I am trying to create a routine in which I write every day, even if it is to just write “I can’t think of anything to write.” 100 times in a row. Forcing myself into the routine of writing everyday would make it easier to be in the routine of blogging and being on social media every day, and will eventually help me with building up my audience and keeping their interest. This kind of focus could be applied to the Hank Moody novel, and I found evidence that Nicholas Sparks, author of The Wedding, has an equally active website and blog, which he uses to share insight on his writing, style and upcoming news and events. I also chose The Carrie Diaries, by Candace Bushnell for one of my focuses in the 1-3 Analysis. The book, website, blog and online following is huge, trailing the success of Bushnell’s many other novels and, now, movies. Bushnell’s witty, funny sarcastic stories have always drawn me in, and her online presence and website ooze the same kind of New York wit and charm as the rest of her writing. I felt that this case study focused on an actively successful blog, similar to what I would like mine to look and function like, and The Wedding by Nicholas Sparks, and Sparks relevant blog posts, are both things and styles that I would like to incorporate into my own work. Bushnell’s writing style and online presence, which is perceived to be very approachable and fun, is exactly the kind of tone and attitude I would want to portray in my writer’s platform. Bushnell makes herself out to be like your best friend, someone you could just pull up a chair and chat with like one of your girlfriends and, once I actually have followers, I hope to maintain that kind of laid-back and inviting kind of online presence in my own platform.

These two examples provide me with a great idea of where to start when beginning to build up your audience as a new writer. Your audience is the key to your success as a writer, as it is impossible to be successful as a writer if no one is reading your work. I think these two authors have unique ideas to spread the word about their work and they both demonstrate the commitment and energy it takes to become a successful author. I hope to implement some of these ideas when creating my writer's platform. What new media channels do you think are most successful for reaching an audience, and which social media platforms are you most drawn to?

Sources:

Sambuchino, Chuck. Create Your Writer Platform: The Key to Building an Audience, Selling More Books, and Finding Success as an Author. Cincinnati, OH: Writer's Digest Books, 2012. 214-216, 233-239. Print.