Although this blog was intended to communicate my thoughts about compassionate living in Miami it was also intended to improve my writing skills and learn how to engage with like-minded individuals. With that said, this post will be dedicated to reviewing two case studies from authors that have been successful in marketing themselves through various media formats. These case studies were published in Create Your Writer Platform.
The first case study that I reviewed was the interview with Gina Holmes. She is a fiction author who writes inspirational stories in hopes of helping others. She has written novels and also has a blog/website. Holmes originally started a blog in hopes of exposing herself and her work but wasn’t very successful in gaining a following. She went to Google and began doing a search to find out how other authors built their platform. This was when she realized that many other people had the same idea of researching author’s platforms by reading interviews and discovering what was successful for other writers. Her next blog post was an interview with an author and her blog hits immediately increased. I think that research is was a great step in her process that helped her to identify her audience and find the best ways to attract them. I have learned that before you can begin creating your platform, you need to be fully versed in who your audience is, where they are spending their time on the web and what they are interested in reading on a daily basis. Holmes also utilized social media to build her platform and sell books. She mentions that Facebook sharing was a great marketing tool for her that helped increase her books sales. I understand the importance of social media, so I would definitely be using that when creating my platform. (Sambuchino, 2012).
The last case study that I enjoyed was that of Brette Sember. She is a non-fiction author who writes about cooking, lifestyle and finance. She also created a blog that helped her gain a following. She has a website called Martha and Me where she spent a year apprenticing herself under Martha Stewart. She would then post blogs that detailed what worked for her and what did not. However, she also found other ways to engage with the community. Each time she tried something from Martha’s website and then blogged about it she would post a link to her blog post in the comment section of Martha’s website. This allowed her to gain a new audience that otherwise might not reach her website. I think that engaging with others through blogs is a great way to gain a following. I currently follow a few blogs centered around food, veganism, animals rights and music. These are all things that I’m interested in writing about. If I were to start interacting in the comments sections and promoting my blog there I would have a better chance of increasing my followers. (Sambuchino, 2012).
I hope this provides some helpful tools and steps for aspiring writers! Good luck!
Create Your Writer Platform by Chuck Sambuchino
Palm Trees and Pomegranates 