Not Just a Writer

You may have felt the call of writing since you were a child. Your passion is writing that special article or exciting novel. You live firmly in the world of the creative.

There was a time when that was enough. Once your book was in the hands of the publisher, you showed up for the book signings and collected your royalty cheques.

Those days are gone.

The book industry has enough financial difficulties that it cannot take on the full burden of marketing. Of course they do marketing, but the expectation is that the author will share in the work. With social media and blogging, there is no excuse for the author not be involved in the marketing.

So what should you do?

Before you finish that next great novel, start building your platform. Create a website. Seek fans on Facebook and followers on Twitter. Make as many connections as possible. In this new world, showing the size of your social media presence will likely be a strong consideration for your book to be published.

You may want to be just a writer, but this publishing world is going to require that you be involved in marketing as well.