*In case you need help building your platform, I’m about to share my rock-star resources and the team that’s helped me build a platform that until very recently, I’d only just dared to hope for. And, to see a video I’ve been working on for months—the thing I’m most excited about—click here (or see again at the end of this post). Now, about that platform suckage…
An agent I work with just got her 10th rejection for a memoir written by a friend of mine.
The rejections are glowing, the agent’s undeterred, and it’s no doubt just a matter of time before the “right” editor says a resounding YES.
“You’re in the gap,” I told her. “That limbo place where you can see where you’re headed, but it’s still just outside of your reach.”
“What should I be doing?” she asked.
“Work on building your platform.” Heavy sigh. No one likes this prescription. I know; I used to be chairman of the Complaint Committee. But diving in to further work on her brand and thus increase her platform (her fan base—people who will BUY her book when it’s released) will help take her mind off the wait. Make her feel proactive. And, if she were to garner more “fans” or “opt-ins” for the newsletter she hasn’t yet created or gain subscribers for the blog she only occasionally updates, potential publishers wouldn’t scoff at her efforts.
“All this is easy for you,” she said. “You’re website’s so professional, your marketing’s so smart. You have a team of people helping you. I don’t have the time, money, or team. I’m overwhelmed. In fact… I’m… um, well, totally intimidated by your online presence! It freaks me out.”
What the heck? Easy for me? I was stunned. Until I forced myself to hire a photographer last year, I hadn’t taken a new head shot in nearly a decade! (Flashbacks of my once crooked-toothed smile and zitty skin haunted.) I’d only just figured out my umbrella name (Book Mama) last year after trying all manner of weird, what-the-bleep former names because Sivertsen’s too hard to spell even for my friends—nope, there’s no “L” there. I’d only recently moved all of the info from my disjointed sites (with different names for my blog, tele-courses, retreats, books, and my editing/consulting) onto that hub. Before that, my “platform” seriously lacked cohesion. Is Linda an author? An interviewer? A ghostwriter? A journalist? An editor? An environmentalist? A retreat leader? A blogger? WTF?
I rarely knew where to send prospective clients. “You really need to put all of your services into one place,” a few honest ones couldn’t help but blurt out.
“Yeah, I know. Thanks,” I’d stammer.
(Not to get too far afield, but in case you’re impressed I had all those sites… my first web guy was a family friend who helped out of the goodness of his heart. Telling a Good Samaritan like this that you want change after change is agonizing. The second was a cheaper than cheap college kid who couldn’t spell ball or fart. It took me longer to tell him how to fix a post than it took me to write them in the first place. The third built a beautiful site for a book release, but cost me well over $25,000. No complaints, except the behind-the-scenes tech stuff was beyond my intelligence level and I never did update a single line on my own.)
This relatively new friend had NO idea how I’d wrestled with trying to figure out how to put myself “out there” as a work-for-hire writer + midwife of other people’s stories. She didn’t know about my expensive divorce, or that I was (and am) single handedly putting my son through film school. In that context, she would have understood why paying for bananas and tampons took precedence over finding and hiring “my team.” Team? Are you kidding me? When you’re rebuilding a life in shambles (as any good dumpee knows), your team, if you’re lucky, consists of a crisis therapist and a gym membership.
I’d borrowed money to hire the most bright, sunny assistant (Natalie) to help me expand and get me through the darkest times (miss her… she’s out conquering the film world now, making a documentary to save lives). But even with her massive help, the divorce stress + my ridiculous dating debacles ate up great chunks of our precious time and brainpower, and we struggled to learn online marketing by our overwhelmed little selves. Yes, I’d written a couple of New York Times bestsellers (and helped clients get 6- and even 7-figure book deals) with people who had LARGE platforms. But when it came to my own, my secret motto was: “Platform building SUCKS.”
But then it all started to gel. My meager attempts to communicate with my small “list” (people who’d signed up for my WordPress publishing tips newsletter—maybe you?), started to bring my work to a larger audience, who then bought my products (passive income) and came to my retreats. Those clients—once strangers from the web—became friends + sisters and are now part of my wide extended family whom I can’t imagine living without.
Who knew a “platform” on the Internet could help foster such goodness? A lot of people, apparently. That’s why this topic never goes away.
It seems that the branding I’d done in fits and starts eventually allowed me to hit an effortless kind of stride that has made every aspect of my life easier, giving me back the most precious thing I’d long since given up—my time. Time to sleep at a sane hour each night and read books for pleasure, not just research. Time to take long hikes with my man and our dogs, ride our horses every day, golf, travel, hang out with our grown kids without looking at the clock, and write nearly whenever the spirit moves me (this is a big one for a once harried ghostwriter).
My motto today? “Platform building sucks… until it doesn’t. (aka: shit takes time.) Then it’s positively dreamy, as the above examples reveal.
“Nothing happens, and then nothing happens, and then everything happens.” ~Fay Weldon
So, what did I do? And, who helped me? (Yes, you can hire them to get this platform-building momentum happening in your own career.)
A few humble recommendations that have worked for me…
Photos: Your web presence starts with a great photo so people can see your essence and feel safe working with you. I adore LA-based photographer Michael Higgins (who shot my old and new pics). He’s fun as hell, talented, honest, a bargain, and eye candy too. (What? You don’t want to be bored on your shoot, do you?)
Social proof: While my first sites were nothing to tell the media about, I generated biz by posting testimonials as soon as I had them. Social proof is powerful—people want evidence that your work WORKS. I recommend doing work for free or at wildly reduced rates with the promise that people will give you blurbs if they love your services. A win-win. Soon you won’t have to give anything away.
Domain names: Buy your own name and book title, if you can get them. If the latter’s not available, try adding “thebook” to the end. That’s how my son and I were able to use the name Generation Green (already taken), as in, www.GenerationGreentheBook.com (the only site I didn’t fold into BookMama). I buy my domains for around $12 through GoDaddy.
Website: Whether or not you can afford help with your site, I recommend building it through WordPress. It’s so easy to update that a little kid could do it. I know plenty of folks who make their little kids do it (just kidding)… I mean… built their WordPress site from the ground up, without prior tech knowledge. I update mine regularly.
Video production + SEO (search engine optimization): By summer of last year, I’d been filling my Carmel writing retreats for some time. In a flash of PR moxie, I made a short video about them with my iPhone and posted it on my retreat site. For a nominal investment, I hired Kathy McDevitt (an Emmy-Award-winning producer with CNN) to go behind the scenes and work her magic with tags and key words to help the video rise in the Google search rankings. Soon, my retreats were on page #1 of Google and people were finding me from around the world (as an example, I had a delightful chat yesterday with an Irish woman who called me from her home in Dubai—wow!). Google is your friend. Getting on the first page or two in your genre, especially a crowded one like writing retreats, is platform-building gold.
My publishing tips blog continued bringing in more subscribers, as did PR from a few successful books I’d co-authored. Everything was feeding into everything else. But I still needed an “umbrella name”—a main hub for all things Linda. For years I’d longed to work on my branding, but wasn’t inspired to until I could figure out that dang umbrella name—something people could spell and I’d be happy with for a long time.
Growth anyone?: That’s when Danielle LaPorte called about launching a digital writing course with me. Danielle has a way of forcing you to play in a bigger sand box, thus, finding a name became URGENT. How I came up with BookMama (and secured the domain) is a tale in and of itself, which I’ll share in my next post.
Web design: Once I’d decided on my new name, Danielle referred me to her rock-star site builder, Paul Jarvis of www.twothirty.com. Paul and I mapped out everything I wanted, and while he simultaneously built our “Your Big Beautiful Book Plan” site (the digital writing course Danielle and I were creating), he masterfully made BookMama come to life in a matter of weeks. I’d never had such an effortless technological experience, and kissed the ground over this pattern changer.
Launch time: By then, Danielle and I had finished writing Your Big Beautiful Book Plan, and HER design team became my team (oh, happy day!). They took our words and put them into a design that upped the elegance factor ten fold. Mara Lubell at www.works-progress.com did our stylin’ book design & cover art. Alexandra Franzen worksmithed just the right copy when our brains had turned to mush. Angie Wheeler, Danielle’s Head of Everything, oversaw the entire project (and yet somehow found the time to load my WordPress site with images and teach me how to update it so I didn’t have to read the directions or watch YouTube videos). Jeff Phillips edited our audio clips, while Cassie Oswald & Hillary Weiss transcribed hours of audio. (Hillary also proofed, wordsmithed, and updated images to BookMama in the 11th hour, just as we were about to hit LIVE on both sites.)
Email marketing: Angie had moved my list over to MailChimp, where she also set up a new newsletter that I could send out anytime on my own, and she and Paul connected my old blog posts to my new WordPress site. Phew.
Video marketing: The very talented Madeline Ell took the video I’d shot with RuffHouse Entertainment here in LA, plus the video she’d shot of Danielle in Vancouver and edited them to create our Your Big Beautiful Book Plan video.
Heat: Once the BookMama and Big Beautiful sites were live, I soon got an email from my favorite hotel in Carmel, The Vagabond’s House Bed and Breakfast Inn, wanting to recommend my retreats on their website, just because. I smiled, knowing this famous artist haven for nearly 100 years, in one of the most revered artist communities in the world, wouldn’t have considered endorsing me had I not updated my look. (Build it and they will come? Yep.)
Still, one last issue bugged. “You really need a more professional video about your retreats.” I’d heard this several times. “The one you made on your phone looks sweet, but…” The subtext was “cheap.”
Retreat videos: I’d seen rave reviews for Caroline Harrison’s work. A former BBC producer/cinematographer, Caroline’s mini-documentaries are like nothing I’ve seen in video marketing. I longed for one of Carmel, if nothing else to have as a keepsake for what has become one of the most treasured experiences of my life.
Caroline took 36 hours of film at this years’ April retreat, and somehow whittled it down to less than 7 minutes (+ a few short testimonial videos). It’s taken me a while to get the vids posted (remember, shit takes time!!!), in part because of things I learned I “should” do first. (Who knew that creating a YouTube channel helps with SEO? Ugh!) Thankfully, Annika Martins—marketing consultant and tech know-how gal Friday—rallied to create that for me. She then had the brilliant idea to gather a bunch of tweetables—dear God, does it ever end?—from my blogs to send out bi-weekly as soon as I want to schedule them. With any luck, I might remember to follow up with her on that.
Today, right now… I’m giddiest about the mini-doc Carmel video we created + Q&A vids that delve deeper into the specifics. I’m humbled by the gorgeous testimonial videos several past participants made. After all this w-a-i-t-i-n-g, I can’t wait to share it all with you here. If you want to comment on the videos or share them with your friends, click here or paste this link: http://bit.ly/NeiOHH. If you’ve been to a retreat, I’d love to know if we’ve captured the magic we experienced together, and for those who haven’t come, please share how the videos inspire your own creative expansion.
Mostly, I share these videos with the prayer that what you see in them—the fulfillment of my platform-building dreams (from suckage to serious satisfaction)—validates for you that your life and work are truly a work of art. Something of great value to share with the world.
Yours,
Linda
P.S.– Thanks to my platform, all 7 retreats I’ve done this year have completely sold out. I’ve only got 3 spots left until next year. If you think you’d like to join us Sept. 24-28, or Oct. 29-Nov. 2nd, fill out the registration form here and we’ll schedule a phone chat to talk about securing your spot… and delivering your book baby, already! Yay!
