Wordpreneur.com

BY CHARLES BROWN

After authoring 70 books, Robert Bly has announced he will write no more. He is getting out of the book writing business. Publishers, he says, are wanting more for less from authors. Advances have gone down to the point he feels writing another book is simply no longer financially rewarding.

Additionally, book publishers are now extremely reluctant to buy a non-fiction book unless the author has a pre-existing “platform” which will help to sell the book. A platform is the name recognition, built in customer base or “brand” an author has before a book is published. These things are now often required before many publishers will buy a book from a new author.

Robert Bly has much more experience than I have on the subject, and far be it for me to disagree with someone with Bob’s track record. However, I still plan to write the several books I have in the works right now. I don’t plan to give up too soon.

Part of my reasoning is I look at writing these books as a way to promote my career as a freelance copywriter. I expect the financial rewards to come, as much from the business a book will generate for me, as from the book’s sales.

But Robert Bly has made me start thinking about this idea of a platform. What if I could build my own platform which will build a demand for my non-fiction book before it is published?

I think the solution to building a platform is blogging. I started my blog, Dynamic Copywriting, about two and a half months ago, and some interesting things have already begun to happen.

Almost without my realizing it, my regular blog posts have accumulated enough material that I have already outlined two complete books. In other words, my blog is writing my books for me.

I have also taken several of my posts and submitted them to several online article submission sites (“article banks”). This has caused my search engine ranking to rise to the point that I am now on page 3 of Google when the term “freelance copywriter” is entered.

Now suppose it takes me a year to write my two books using my blog posts as the rough draft building blocks? Suppose also that I aggressively promote my site while I am writing my two books? What I hope will happen is this: By the time my first book is complete, I hope the blog will have created a built-in audience for it. After it is published, I will continue with my blog and finish my second book at the same time. I hope the blog traffic will promote book #1 and build a demand for book #2 before it is finished.

Will my idea work? I’ll have to see. But I do honestly believe a blog can create demand for a book before it even hits the bookstores. Further, I know that writing regular posts on my blog is creating my books day by day.

I have even found that the worst posts I’ve written are not without some value. I have gone back and taken these ideas, rewritten them, polished them and improved them. The main thing was to get the ideas in writing first. Improvement can come later.

Book publishing may be harder than ever for authors to crack. But that just means the author must be more creative and more proactive.

Using a blog as a marketing tool AND to generate the material, may be the way to go.

Charles Brown is a Dallas, Texas based freelance copywriter who writes Web copy, advertisements, white papers and direct mail. Visit his blog, Dynamic Copywriting, to subscribe to his “Freelance Copywriter Secrets” and download your free copy of his 99 Ideas for Writing Irresistible Web Content.

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