A Key Tool For Every Author

From my years in publishing, I've learned authors are a stubborn bunch. Most of us have huge dreams for our writing. We want other people to read it, publish our work, pay us fairly for our work—yet we don't want to actively be involved in marketing our work and telling other people about our writing. We want to create and write more words. I've been consistently teaching writers to add regular marketing to their writing life. These skills are something that everyone can learn—and it's not too early (or late) in the process for you to begin building your audience.

Recently I met with a much-published author who had a stack of proposals and ideas for books that he wanted to write. I admired his drive and desire to write new books. He does have some websites and I checked out those sites. During our conversation, he mentioned that he didn't have a platform or visibility in the market.

As I looked at his website, this author was missing a key tool in his arsenal of reaching his audience. He had no list-building device on his website. There are many different forms of this list-building device. In general, the author offers a free Ebook or a free audio or a free special report—in exchange for the reader giving their first name and email address. In the last few years, I've created a number of these types of offers.

For example, my Straight Talk From the Editor, 18 Keys to A Rejection-Proof Submission is a free Ebook. I promote this Ebook on my name website, my blog and a number of other places including twitter.

When you create one of these tools, you are gathering names and emails for an email list. Each time you send an email (whether a single offer) or an e-zine, you include the removal or unsubscribe links so the reader can no longer receive your mailings.

Everyone begins with a small number of subscribers then through providing consistent quality materials, your list grows and your audience grows. To me, List Building is a key tool for every author or would-be author. It doesn't matter if you are writing nonfiction or fiction, poetry or novels or magazine articles, every writer and author should be working on this regular communication tool.

To help you with more of the details about how to build a list, I've launched The List Building Tycoon. This step-by-step guide will teach you the various elements of list building and start today to gather your audience. This 76–page resource is backed with my 60 day risk-free guarantee.

Whether you get my List Building Tycoon ebook or not, I hope you will begin to take action and develop your own audience. It's a key step for every author.

Become A Magazine Editor

Some of you will have to use your imagination a bit because you don't have a lot of publishing experience or even if you have publishing experience, just let go and imagine for a few minutes.

You've been offered a new position as a magazine editor. Now your responsibility is to reach your target audience with solid writing on a regular basis. You will have to write a few articles. You will have to reach out to other writers and get their material. You will look for some products to review and advertise. Then you will add subscribers and be involved in the business aspects of producing your publication.

Feel a bit overwhelmed with the responsibility? It doesn't have to overwhelm you. In fact, there are easy-to-use resources to help you create the content for your publication.

I've often encouraged writers to begin their own magazine—an electronic newsletter. This magazine is a consistent way you can reach out and touch your audience with solid content—and remind them that you want to help them in your particular subject or area of expertise. I have had a newsletter for many years, Right-Writing News. Follow the link and you can see it and subscribe to it. When you subscribe you will receive free ebooks—and access to all of my years of back issues.

Publishers, editors and agents are actively looking for good writers but they want these writers to come to them with a ready-made audience. What are you doing to create this audience? Yes, you are working at your writing and storytelling skills—which is excellent. But are you making audience-building a priority? I hope so because having a ready-made audience could be the tipping point between finding your champion inside the publishing house and a form rejection.

Robert W. Bly has been one of my long-term friends and a mentor in this area of newsletter creation and marketing. His Ebook, Ready-Made Ezines, has a revised second edition and is excellent.

In the first part of this Ebook, Bob provides important details about the creation and writing of an Ezine. He answers important questions such as:

• Why do you do it?
• How frequently to you touch your audience?
• How do you expand your audience and get people's email addresses?
• How can you create it in two hours or less?
• Do you send the Ezine in HTML or text?
• What are the two most important lines in every email?
• What are the 14 things Bob likes to put into his Ezine?

In the second portion, Bob gives the lasting value of this particular resource: ready-to-use Ezine articles on different topics that you can cut and paste into your own Ezine. The articles are organized into ten different categories for easy use.

This valuable resources is an investment in your own writing life but from my view it is well worth it. You will gain education and the practical articles that you can use for weeks into the future to build your own audience. This resource matches a consistent message that I've been giving to writers. Every writer needs to be developing their own audience and their own products.

If you don't have an Ezine, then take the first step with Ready-Made Ezines. If you already have an Ezine, then you will find more ideas and a treasure-trove of ready-t0–use articles. I'm going to be using this resource in the days ahead. How about you?