Almost every week, it seems, an author calls me practically in tears, panicked that she can’t park in her garage because it’s filled with stacks of cardboard boxes that hold hundreds of books she can’t sell.
Sometimes, the author tells me that she once dreamed that her book would be a best-seller and that it would prompt her publisher to offer her a 6-figure advance for another book.
Then the troubled author asks me for some quick advice on how she can generate publicity so she can park in her garage again.
Susan Harrow, a media coach and marketing strategist, says authors like that one have it backwards. First, Susan says, they must generate publicity—tons of it, in fact—that position them as experts. Then and only then should they write a book. If you’ve done the hard work that it takes to build your platform, and you have a topic that appeals to a book-buying audience, you might be on your way to a 6-figure book deal. But only if you can convince a publisher that you can do as good a job as he can, or better, selling it.
“Your platform demonstrates that you have a built-in audience already,” Susan says. “Those are people who want your book, want to hear you speak, hang on your every word, buy your stuff, follow you, and maybe even want your autograph, your pencil, your hanky, some piece of you, anything,” she says. “That’s what makes a concrete platform.”
While conducting research for her ebook “Get a Six-Figure Book Advance,” Susan spoke to publisher after publisher who told her that authors need to create a platform BEFORE they even approach an agent.
“Agents don’t want to have to sell you and then sell your book,” she said. “They just want to sell your book.”
Susan will share more about what she learned from publishers this week during an 80-minute teleseminar titled “How to Build a Publicity Platform That Leads to a Six-Figure Book Deal.” It will be at 4 PM Eastern Time on Thursday, September 22.
You can register here.
Many of Susan’s clients have inked 6-figure book deals, and she’ll explain how they built their platforms that convinced publishers to take their books.
You can read more about Susan’s ebook “Get a Six-Figure Book Advance.”