Posts by Dan Blank
You, dear writer, are going to fail. Miserably.
Until you succeed.
You will be alone.
Until you are embraced with open arms.
We are going to make fun of you (giddily.)
Until we come to respect you.
We will find every tiny flaw in your otherwise decent story.
Until it grabs our hearts and makes us fall in love.
We will do the worst thing possible for way longer than you expect: we will ignore you.
Until we can’t stop thinking about you, and talking about your work.
We will use you as a scapegoat for our own sense of inequity.
Until we strive to become more like you.
We will take pot-shots at you. Making fun of things that are none of our business.
Until you stop caring about those things.
We will grossly generalize what your work embodies, misconstruing it whenever possible.
Until you ensure we “get it.”
Dear author, we are not going to make this easy for you.
Read MoreI work with a lot of writers, and it is not unusual for them to feel overwhelmed at some point in the process of trying to craft their platform. I define platform as having two core elements:
Notice a phrase missing here: “social media.”
Yes, social media can makes it easier to do these things, but it can be overwhelming to manage. I find that for some, it obscures the real goal: establishing meaningful connections with other people, not waiting to go “viral.”
In fact, I often find social media works dramatically better for authors when you completely flip the mentality of hoping to “go viral.” Instead: work hard to resist going viral, get focused, simple, and human. I mean, seriously, when did the word “viral” become something we desperately feared to becoming something we desired? Ick!
Your platform as an author is based on the QUALITY of connection with someone, not the quantity of how many people you are loosely connected to.
I have worked through SO MANY digital strategies from the height of the first dot com boom, through the decade plus that followed. So often, you hear big numbers such as “the link received 10,000 clicks,” or “the effective reach of that blog post was 200,000 people,” or “judging value based on how many eyeballs saw a page.”
Another “ick!” here. Why would we dissect a human being’s value to the body part that sees, but not the brain function that analyzes or the heart that cares?
What I find is this: a simple handwritten note can be dramatically more powerful in growing your platform than hundreds of Pinterest Pins, reblogs or followers.
I received a note in the mail the other week that put a warm feeling in my heart. Yes, I’m sentimental that way. Here it is:
Read MoreThe post below is meant as a joke. I wrote it to underscore how sometimes people misuse social media and the idea of promotion and marketing in general. Finding a readership and using social media is not about “influence” and “leverage,” it is about genuine connections with the right people. There are plenty of folks who put pressure on authors to try to reduce the complexity of these relationships to a simple number. This post pokes a bit of fun at that.
Thanks. – Dan
Sometimes, an author comes to me with the expectation that an agent or publisher requires them to have a certain number of Twitter followers in order to be considered for publication. They wake up in the middle of the night screaming: “Thanks for the follow!”
Today, I want to provide a concise guide to help authors understand how to calculate the value of their social media following, in order to comprehend the proper role of social connections.
Put simply, this is how you judge the value of anyone you are connected to on social media:
X = (A*B)+(C*D)/E
Whereas:
A = number of Twitter followers you have
B = size of your email list
C = # of Facebook fans
D = # of daily repins on Pinterest
E = the likelihood that you can introduce me to Seth Godin or Malcolm Gladwell
X here, represents your value, or your “Base Author Recommendation Factor” or BARF score for short. In other words: exactly how valuable are you as a friend. What do you do with this X number once you have it? Oh, so many things, all of which are shielded from authors by the “powers that be” in publishing.
Read MoreSo I am going to ask Kathleen and Therese to bear with me here for a moment, I need to ask this great community to do something:
Go away.
That’s right, click away from this blog post right now, leave this wonderful website behind. Goodbye.
(Are you still there? You are such a stubborn writer! Which is why I love you. Okay, let me explain…)
Far too many writers build an audience of the WRONG people. As a writer, you craft a work that is meaningful to you, and you wonder how you will connect it to the world. So you begin engaging with people online and off, telling them about your writing.
And guess what? Guess who is MOST interested in this journey you are on? Readers? Nope. Oftentimes, it is other writers.
So we do what feels validating and welcoming: we join amazing communities such as staging-writerunboxed.kinsta.cloud. We forge relationships, we grow our platforms with people who want you to succeed as a writer.
But therein lies the problem.
These good people – these other writers, yes they may buy your book. They may read it too. They MIGHT even review it on Amazon & Goodreads. And this is good.
But what I worry about is that when you focus only on engaging other writers, you are not learning how to engage readers. Without the shared interest in becoming a writer, without tapping into that sense of identity and goals, you are not developing that keen instinct of who would love your book and how to get them interested.
Read More“You have the minimum amount of my attention.”
How does that phrase make you feel? This is a quote from the movie The Social Network, where the character of Mark Zuckerberg explains why he is not focused on the legal proceedings of those who are suing him:
When I work with writers, I am focused on helping them find their ideal audience, and develop communication and trust with them. I tend to call this “platform,” but others refer to it by other terms.
What sometimes surprises me is the missed opportunity by those who want to give their readers only the “minimum amount” of their attention. In other words: I will give you JUST ENOUGH attention to get you to buy my book, and then: nothing more.
Sometimes, these are just fearful justifications from overwhelmed authors. Someone who is:
I never want to forget that writers don’t practice their craft in a vacuum. The context of their entire lives is ever-present.
But is it okay to phone it in? To do only the minimum amount of what is expected? To show up, but just barely?
Read More“People will do anything to alleviate their anxiety.”
This is a quote from a recent episode of Mad Men, that to me, underscores the everyday context that no one talks about publicly.
I work with writers, and find that anxiety is a very real and very constant part of their lives. Why? Just a few reasons:
This is, of course, not exclusive to writers.
But what I find again and again is that we don’t talk about our anxiety. We don’t admit that we have anxiety. We don’t talk about how crippling it feels. That it can bathe one’s days and nights in a foggy cloud of uncertainty and panic. That we make decisions out of fear that stems from anxiety, not because they are the best things for us.
Our anxiety is often hidden, masked behind common expressions, and simplistic answers to the question, “How are you doing?!” And when we express the anxiety to friends or colleagues, it is often explained away with simple solutions to complex problems. You get responses such as “Ah, don’t worry about it,” or “You are doing great, you worry too much!”
Our anxiety is always relative, and truth be told, sometimes other people’s anxiety can seem insignificant on the surface. When someone expresses that they don’t know whether to self-publish or not, or they are nervous about a book reading, you rarely feel the depth of their anxiety. To you, it is a logical decision, and one that likely won’t have crushing ramifications one way or another. But to the person with the question, they can get lost in the internal debate in their head, where all potential success as writer hangs in the balance.
Read MoreI’ve been thinking
a lot
about
how we judge
and filter
and decide
who
what
where
is good
online.
Seth Godin recently talked about how what you share online becomes your own personal “backlist” as a person. And that, as the years go by, your backlist should help support you, instead of being something that closes doors.
But one example he used was jarring to me:
“I almost hired someone a few years ago–until I googled her and discovered that the first two matches were pictures of her drinking beer from a funnel, and her listed hobby was, “binge drinking.” Backlist!”
This terrified me.
That as we, creators.
We writers.
We artists.
We musicians.
We… human beings…
Can be judged
So quickly
So completely
For a moment
An expression
Even one that may be ill-advised (yet entirely legal.)
It seems unfair
To need to craft one simplistic narrative
Of one’s work
Of one’s life.
Read MoreWho will shape the future of publishing? Authors. Too often, the conversation centers on publishers and startups and enormous companies as the focal point for innovation. These entities may have a financial market caps measured in the billions, whereas an individual author may be making just a few hundred or a few thousand dollars per year with their books.
Today, I want to talk about the author as innovator. I want to talk about the power of writers to shape the future of publishing.
I go to a lot of publishing and writing conferences, and often they are discussing the ‘future of publishing.’ Recently, I attended Tools of Change for Publishing, which focused more on the technology side of the future of publishing.
What is often missing from the conversation are authors themselves. Instead, we talk about “books” as if they spring into being on their own. As if they are manufactured.
There are other innovations that are possible for publishing today besides merely technical or retail innovations. Jason Ashlock recently interviewed Jeff Gomez, and characterized a point he made as:
“When it comes to storytelling innovation, authors lead, publishers follow.”
I recently found out about The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, which is an adaptation of Pride & Prejudice told via YouTube videos. Hank Green helped create the project, and it’s interesting to hear how he announced it in the very beginning last April. While he is using new media to tell a classic story, the actual innovation is very simple: it’s how they tell the story.
Read More“A writer should do what they do best and only this: write.”
I heard this statement again at the Digital Book World conference in New York City last week, and I began really considering if I agreed with it. We are at a funny time in the world of creative expression, one where the artist, the musician, the writer no longer absolutely NEEDS middlemen in order to make a living with their art or craft.
Layers have been removed between the writer and their audience. No longer is a publicist or an agent or a publisher required. YES, they are powerful partners in one’s writing career, but they are now an OPTION, not a requirement. That is a huge shift.
So for you, the author, you get to choose whatever type of writing career you would like. There is no single path anymore. Yes, you can just write and do nothing else. No marketing, no social media, no book tours, no worrying about cover design, or translation, or rights, or file formats, or metadata, nothing. Just write. Go ahead, I don’t mind.
But…
With 1.5 million books published last year, what we are seeing is that lots of folks are doing just that: writing. Which is why I focus more and more not on getting one’s work published, but ensuring it is read; ensuring it finds a reader who appreciates the work, and is affected by it in a positive way.
It sounds romantic to say that a writer should just write. The implication is that a writer should not become marketers. They shouldn’t sell out, and belittle their writing talents by becoming a salesperson. Insert complaint about authors yelling “buy my book!” on Twitter, all day, all night.
This romantic vision aligns with a vision we hope to have of the world, one of the authentic craftsperson or artist, honing their skills with a zen-like focus over the course of years.
Read MoreToo many book launches are panic attacks, similar to a trip to the dentist.
With 1.5 million books published last year, writers nowadays know that publicity for their books around book launch can be challenging. The days where you can silently write your book, and then scream about it on launch day are producing lesser results than they may have once done.
So we introduce this concept of author platform – slowly developing a trusting relationship with your ideal readers over time. So that, when your book finally does launch, you have an audience of people waiting for it. They WANT to buy it. They WANT to spread the word. You have to rely less on screaming at the world about your book, and more on communicating with an audience that already knows you and trusts you. An audience ready to take action, to buy your book.
But we are all busy. We put off core aspects of developing your brand as a writer because, well, you are writing; you are working through a tough publishing process, whether you are self-publishing or going through a traditional agent/publisher relationship.
So we wait. And as the book launch approaches, it becomes more and more similar to how we treat a trip to the dentist:
Read MoreDo you sometimes get turned off by writers who try to market their books online or at conferences?
For instance:
What if, right now, I linked to a $5 ebook I wrote on how you can sell more ebooks and suggested you buy it? You just cringed, right? Don’t worry, that link only takes you to a picture of My Little Pony.
What is it about money that makes us question someone’s intentions? What are the “rules” about if and when you can actually inform people that you have a book you wouldn’t mind they check out?
Tad Hargrave has an interesting way of looking at what marketing is, the following is from a talk he gave in the UK:
“I find that a lot of people are in this situation where they are good at what they do, they have spent a lot of time and money learning to do what they do, but they haven’t necessarily learned how to articulate it or market it. If I had to sum up marketing in a sentence, I would say that marketing is about establishing the value beyond the immediately apparent. This is one of the core challenges in marketing: how do we take what is good on the inside, and make sure that gets seen and understood on the outside.”
He lists four reasons that marketing is valuable:
Read MoreDo you have a team working for you every single week to ensure you are a success? Do you protect your writing time, getting strategic or tactical help with some aspects of your writing career, freeing up your creative energy and your time to actually WRITE? Today, we are going to talk about how you can – and SHOULD – build a team to give you more time to write, and find more success doing so.
YOU ARE NOT AN (OVERWHELMED) ISLAND
Drowning? You are not alone. So many authors I know feel completely overwhelmed with some, if not all, of the following:
So stop pretending you can do it all, that you are just one productivity app or one productivity book away from balancing it all. Balance is an illusion. Why? Well, imagine a perfectly balanced scale. What does it take for it to become unbalanced? ANYTHING! The slightest movement, the slightest weight put on one side or the other kills the balance. Now, imagine a scale trying to balance six thing, representing each of the obligations many writers face which I described in the bullets above. How easy is that to balance?
Managing a successful writing career takes time to figure out. You need a team. The best time to start building one? Right now.
When you are overwhelmed, you miss opportunities. You don’t show up to events, you don’t schedule meetups, you don’t pursue new ideas to find an audience, you don’t take some crazy risk. You… just… try… to… keep… your… head… above… water.
You need space to not just be creative in your writing, but to be open to new experiences, have the space for long unexpected conversations, and to potentially try new things.
Opportunities happen because of relationships. Getting that speaking engagement, a chance meeting with an agent, connecting with another author who reshapes how you think about your own writing career.
NO, EVERYTHING DOESN’T NEED TO BE CRAFTED BY YOU
Read MoreI heard this from a writer in a class I am teaching: “I have been struggling with the “who is my audience piece.”
They hadn’t realized that before they figure out WHAT they want to say, they need to understand who their ideal audience really is.
I would like to say that this is the MOST common feedback I hear from writers, but often, it isn’t. I would like to think that writers are obsessing about who their audience is. But instead, the most common request I here is always:
“How do I grow my audience?”
But how can you grow your audience when you don’t know who they are?
When I ask them the next logical question: “tell me about the people who make up your ideal audience,” I often get some long pauses, some hemming and hawing, and half-hearted attempts at answers:
Now, I LOVE LOVE LOVE working with writers. So I will try to put this as delicately as possible:
No, your story is not universal.
Thinking it is doesn’t only devalue the complexity and range of human experience on this planet, but doesn’t serve you well to understand how to find more readers for your work. Maybe your book will be a breakout success, demolishing previously conceived lines of topic, genre and audience.
But…
Before you take a bet on that lottery ticket – that your book needs to find the success of Harry Potter, or no success at all – focus on establishing a small and engaged audience of people who truly love your work.
Today I want to talk about why it is important to understand who your audience is, and how critical this information can be if you actually want to GROW your audience.
Many writers don’t share their work before publication, and if they do, it is often only with other writers. They just don’t feel they have the time to consider their audience, they are barely keeping up with writing, the publishing process, and the rest of their life. So they lump anything having to do with their audience under the term “marketing,” and justify that you don’t do marketing until just before the book comes out. This allows them to keep a safe distance from their audience – and from determining who these people may actually be.
In reality, they are just hoping – perhaps even praying – that once their book comes out, their intended readers will do the hard work for them. That the audience will self-select, raise their hands, and go out of their way to find this book. The author envisions publication as a process of LEARNING who their audience is as a passive act. But finding readers is important if you actually want to get read.
Why do many writers think their book appeals to a wide audience? Because they simply haven’t done the work to realize who it WOULD appeal to, and who it WOULDN’T appeal to.
Read More
