Amanda's Recipe for Writing and Marketing

Amanda Luedeke of the Chip MacGregor agency gave our Indiana ACFW Chapter some great insights into building an author's platform last Saturday. (Don't know what an author's platform is? Maybe you're writing too much.)

Amanda certainly knows her way around the world of marketing, having created campaigns for Vera Bradley and other national brands. Now she focuses on promoting the careers of her author-clients, and a vital part of that effort is the author's platform.

An author's platform is comprised of all contacts that an author makes with the public every month...every week...every day. The more contacts, the bigger your platform. The more targeted your contacts with people who are interested in the topics and/or genres you write about, the stronger your platform.

Before they ink a contract with you, agents and publishers want to see your platform. No platform? No contract.

At our April 26 meeting, Amanda explained how to use social media to build that platform. If you weren't at Saturday's meeting, you'll have to read her new book, The Extroverted Writer. Here's an important take-away from her presentation that's not included in the book, Amanda's recipe for allocating your time between writing and marketing.:

Aspiring Author
       1 part marketing / 3 parts writing

Published Fiction Author
       1 part marketing / 1 part writing

Published Nonfiction Author
       3 parts marketing / 1 part writing

In other words, Amanda recommends that an aspiring author allocate writing time in a ratio of 1:3 (e.g., if you have an hour for writing, spend 15 minutes of marketing for every 45 minutes writing). If you're a published fiction writer, spend a half-hour of personal marketing for every half-hour of writing. An established nonfiction writer? Make that 45 minutes of marketing for every 15 minutes of writing.

And you thought I was joking when I said you might be writing too much!

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Joe Allison and his wife, Judy, live in Anderson IN, where Joe serves as Editorial Director of Discipleship Resources & Curriculum for Warner Press, Inc. Joe has several nonfiction books in print, including Swords and Whetstones: A Guide to Christian Bible Study Resources. He's currently writing a trilogy of Christian historical novels set in the Great Depression.

Visit Joe's blog at http://hoosierwriter.wordpress.com