Tools for your author platform

As a follow-up to yesterday’s post, I thought it could be helpful to share the tools and websites I use for my author platform. Some are more successful than others, but it doesn’t take a lot of time to manage these things.

Websites and blog

I prefer WordPress for all my three sites (jasonbougger.com, themeofabsence.com, and writegoodbooks.com) For a blog such as this one, I also found it easier to buy a professional template. The Genesis Framework is awesome, and I’d recommend it to anyone who is new to WordPress and blogging. There are thousands of compatible templates out there, and you should be able to find one that fits your needs. For hosting, I use Bluehost, and could not be happier with its pricing and support.

Social Media

For making connections with readers and other writers, Twitter and Facebook are my networks of choice. I’m far more active on Twitter than on Facebook, but I do think it’s important to have a Facebook author page. With a page (as opposed to your regular Facebook profile) you are allowed to promote and sell books. For me, my Facebook profile is for my real life friends, and my page is for the business (writer) side, which is publicly searchable.

For marketing this blog, I primarily use Pinterest, but I also share new posts on my Facebook page, Twitter, and Google Plus. But Pinterest is great, and around half of my traffic comes from it.

Promotion

If you’ve got any books or publications containing your short stories, you should set up an Amazon page. It helps get you listed in search engines, and also has a lot of neat features like adding a rss to pull in your blog, and can link up to the major social media profiles. It also doesn’t hurt to set up a Goodreads author site for much the same reason.

Public appearances are the other way I promote myself as an author. I’ve participated on panels at science fiction conventions, given talks on writing, and done a few book signings. It’s not easy to find opportunities to do these things, but I did have a lot of doors opened for me by joining the Nebraska Writers Guild. If you’re a writer in Nebraska, you should check them out. If you’re in another state, try to find a similar group.

I also had some luck with local conventions. I’ve gotten on panels by simply contacting the people running the event and saying, “Hey, I’m a writer. Here are my creditials. Do you have any panels I could be on?” Or find a link and propose your own. But be sure to bring business cards. I use Vistaprint for mine, but there are a lot of great companies to pick from when it comes to printing your cards. Just make sure you’ve got all of your websites and an email address on them.

Podcast

Finally, you may or may not know about the podcast I do with my friend and fellow author, Scott Michael Childers. We host on SoundCloud, and I use Audacity for the recording and editing. The first 25 episodes are also available on YouTube.

And I believe that is everything. So I hope you found this to be of some use if you’re still working on your platform. But like I said yesterday, be careful that you don’t end up spending too much time “being a writer” and not writing.

Thanks for reading and if you’ve got any other platform-building tips, feel free to share them in the comments section!