Building an Author Platform Landed My First Book Deal

Writer at WorkBy , @Writing2Day

“If you can get that to me by the end of the week, you’ll have a happy editor.”

Those words sent to me in an email elicited such a feeling of joy, as it started to sink in that I have an editor. Wow, I have an editor! A few days ago the contract was emailed and the same feeling hit again. Wow, my first book contract! If you’re an aspiring writer, you know how much you long to hear those words. I’m sure even successful writers with many books under their belt can still remember the feeling that came with the first deal.

I wanted to share the news with everybody and tell you how it came about. I’ve done an awful lot of reading on the subject of building an author platform, as I’m sure many aspiring writers do. I tweet, I blog, I have a Facebook fan page, and a website. I instinctively knew that I wanted to start marketing my writing ahead of time in hopes of having an audience in place before my first novel is published.

In addition to working on my novel, I have published several different travel articles on my website and other websites (most recently the Yahoo! Contributor Network). This is what led to my first book deal. An editor for a publishing house was looking for a writer to do an historical work about Grand Teton National Park. She had googled “writers on Grand Teton National Park” and my article on the Tetons came up in her search. She then contacted me (that’s right, she contacted me) and asked if I would be interested in the project. You’re kidding me right? Of course, I’m interested. I love the Tetons and I love to write. Bazinga!

My ultimate writing goal is to be a published novelist. That being said, I will thoroughly enjoy working on the book and any publishing credits can’t hurt when it comes to getting a novel published down the road. So hang there and keep working on your author platform. You never know who might take notice of your work and what success it might bring you.

To your writing success!

Leave a Reply