This post was written for small business owners and sales personnel, so why is it published on a writing website? Because that’s exactly what we need to be in order to sale ourselves to an agent, publisher, and ultimately to the public at large. Take what you can.

Thank you, Diane, for sharing your knowledge with us.

Diane earned a BS in Social Science from Michigan State University and received her coaching certification from The Coach Training Alliance.

As a certified, professional coach and president of Seize This Day Coaching, Diane works with people starting their own business, salespeople who need and want to improve their skills, and business owners who want to master challenges and realize greater success. She is also co-founder of Seize True Success, a coaching practice dedicated to helping franchisees grow and prosper.

Diane helps businesses and organizations operate more constructively and profitably. She evaluates, encourages, and guides her clients. Working with as few as one person to as many as 100+, Diane creates an environment that is cooperative and interactive.

Coupled with her business acumen are strong intuitive skills and a genuine desire to help other people realize their potential.

Diane is a COSE Mindspring editor and writer for www.examiner.com. She is also a member of the Top Sales Experts panel at www.topsalesexperts.com. Diane is also a contributing author to Chicken Soup for the Soul: Power Moms.
To learn more about her coaching practices please visit www.seizethisdaycoaching.com or www.seizetruesuccess.com

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Sarah is writer looking for an agent. She is currently working on novel # 4, editing novels 2 and 3, and querying novel # 1. For more insight to her work, visit: http://legendoftheprotectors.wordpress.com/ or http://legendoftheprotectors.blogspot.com/

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I’ve been rather concerned about my platform as of late. To be quite honest, I wasn’t aware until a couple weeks ago that I even needed one. I’m thankful I was already well on my way to creating one, though, or else I would have been overwhelmed by the insane amounts of information out there about platforms and brands.

A few days ago, I came across www.dirjournal.com while searching for an image on Google. (I needed a Twitter logo to put on my personal blog to announce I had finally joined.) Well, this site I found is rather interesting and informative — it’s called DirJournal Marketing Articles and is all about “Design Trends, Internet Marketing, SEO, [and] Social Media Marketing.” Thankfully, three authors on the site, including Lisa Barone, were kind enough to break it down in about four articles. In turn, I’m going to attempt to make it simple for you all, as well, so you can go about creating your platform or making it even bigger and better than it already is. Here’s hoping I can make it a little less overwhelming for you. I will start this week with Lisa’s article, and then next week, I’ll delve deeper. Initially, I was going to put all the information into one blog, but as I began writing, I quickly realized that this is a serial article. So stay tuned.

First thing’s first. What is a platform? And why do we, as writers, need a platform, or brand?
Well, put simply, it’s how you are represented on the internet, and you need one so that people know who you are. Most likely, no one is going to read books written by an author who hasn’t made what s/he is all about readily available. You want people to know you and your work. And you want to show yourself in the best light possible. It’s also important that the information you put out there is garnering a lot of attention.

So, if you don’t already have a blog or a home page, get one. That should be #1 on your list. I have a WordPress blog and I recently purchased the domain name edentylerwriter.com for only $14.97/yr. Rather affordable, I believe. And well worth the money because when others do a Google search for your name, it will be easier for them to find you this way. Be vain. It’s worth it.
Next step is to set up a Google profile. Every time I do a search for “Eden Tyler,” my Google Profile shows up at the bottom of the first page, without fail. On this profile, you are able to tell potential readers anything and everything you’d like them to know about yourself, and you can also set up links to all of the websites you are involved with, or own. Most of us most likely have one of these already, as even this site has a ‘following’ which you can join through the use of your own Google profile.
After you’ve accomplished the two most important things, you now should join as many social networking sites as you can. These include LinkedIn, Naymz, and Facebook, among others. Make sure you seem as professional as possible when using these sites and join up with others in your chosen career path. Network and learn. Of course you can have fun, too. Twitter is a little less formal and doesn’t have to be used just for writing contacts. Nor does Facebook. But sites such as LinkedIn are a lot more professional. In fact, Lisa set aside an entire section of her article just for LinkedIn. She feels it’s that important to have a profile on the site because it ranks rather highly during Google searches. I have not set up a profile on the site yet, but it’s my next order of business. I believe it’s one of the first two or three results that pop up when searching my name. Unfortunately, there is already a semi-famous Eden Tyler (a male, NYC-based director), so his information shows up rather than mine. This needs to be fixed. Pronto!

One last step, which I will explain in further detail next Friday, is to guest blog as often as the opportunity is made available to you. Don’t be afraid to ask site owners if they need any help. Send in examples of your work and see what the responses are. The worst that can happen is people say, “No.” But it could also be a nice and easy way to get your name out there. Acquire some followers. Usually, these aren’t paying gigs, but we’re not quite to that point yet. Baby steps.

Hope this helps you all arrive a little closer to your writing goals. See you next week for another installment.

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Since winning her first writing competition at a young age, Eden Tyler, has only fallen more in love with the written word. She uses her English, Psychology, and Sociology backgrounds to create depth to her own stories and novels while contributing to and running websites about writing. This is what fulfills her, along with working as Co-Editor for Fuel Your Writing, but she also enjoys the freelance work that puts food on the table (and that ever-essential roof overhead) for her family.

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Oh, I know this looks like I am about to give you some tutorial… but nope.

I’m asking you, dear reader… how?

Here I sit starting at a query, and I know the story is a good one. I know it has a good hook, a great conflict, and frakkin awesome characters. So how do I summarize it and get an agent to read it?

A month or so ago Nathan Bransford did an agent for a day experiment on his blog.

Basically, there were 50 queries, and your task was to go through and decide which ones were actually published books. I got about three into the list and realized something. Queries are kind of boring, and they shouldn’t be!

Now, I’m frustrated because I don’t want to bore with my query. How can I hook them reader?

How can I get the voice of my smackin story into these two teeny tiny paragraphs?

How do you do it? I am dying to know!

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A couple of months back, we had guest blogger Beth Revis talk about the Scrivener software, but I was sad when I learned it was only for Mac users. She mentioned an alternative. The Page Four Software.

Now, I consider myself to be a bit of a technology freak, so when I read about the special writing software just for me, I had to try it out!

I contacted the software company, and they graciously offered me a copy of their software so I could write a review.

I have to say that while some of it took me quite a while to get used to, there are parts of this software that I find invaluable to my writing.

The coolest feature by far is the tabbed writing feature. Basically, each chapter of your book gets its own tab and you can move them around as you see fit.

I love the flexibility of being able to move my stuff around, reference notes and outlines easily, and to open a chapter without having to scroll around to find it. The tab feature alone makes me like this software, but another cool feature is the ability to quickly scan for over used words and phrases.

Not only can you scan for the phrases, but you can set all your own attributes, so if you don’t want it to search for something in particular, then it will just skip right over that.

I love this feature, and discovered things about my book that well… let’s just say I have a tendency to overuse certain words… okay?

It also has a really cool roll back feature that lets you look at older versions of your work, so if you decide you spent an entire day over editing the crap out of something and now you want it back–then all you have to do is roll back to a previous version.

I did find a couple of things I wasn’t so crazy about with the software though. Most of my friends write in word, which means they edit in word as well. We use the little comment bubbles out to the side and the track changes feature in order to peer edit each other’s stuff. You can’t use word bubbles in page four, and you can’t see the tracked changes, so if your friends are using that, then there’s really no way for you to check their comments other than to open up your MS Word stuff. You can upload .doc files into the software though, so that does make up for this flaw a little.

I really like the ability to comment out to the side of someone’s work, and I love the track changes feature for when I am line editing something, so this is a major thing to me. I wish that the software somehow offered the same amazing editing and change tracking that word offers while still having all the great features like the tabs and the overused phrase counter.

I am still mostly using word to write my documents, and haven’t completely fell in love with pagefour yet, but I have been using it more lately, and I promise to update you as I continue to get more familiar with it.

I would love to hear about the software you use to write your manuscripts with. Please let me know in the comments below.

I’d also like to extend a special thank you to pagefour for providing me with a free copy of their software for review. If your company makes a software designed specifically for writers, you can contact me at jamie (@) totally the bomb (.) com (remove the spaces and parentheses) or just leave a comment below, and I will be happy to review it.

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My 10 Commandments to Writing Success: A No-Fail Approach/Part 3
By Michael P. Geffner

As many of you already know by now, my article, “10 Commandments to Writing Success,” was so popular that various versions have appeared all over the place, including in The Writer and The Writer’s Handbook, as well as on asbolutewrite.com and a slew of other writing resource sites.

Strangely, the whole thing grew entirely out of serendipity. I feverishly wrote the first version in no more than a half-hour and never intended it to be published. It was merely a way to answer all the member questions I had received when I began my first club, Mike’s Writing Workshop on Yahoo, in March of 2001.

As it turned out, people seemed to love it. There was a clamoring for more. So I ended up writing a Part 2 to it…and, well, the rest is history.

I thought it was time to add 10 more to the list for Part 3.

Hope you enjoy—but, more importantly, that you get something out of it and that it pushes you closer to your writing dream.

Here are the new commandments:

1) Pitch stories that you absolutely own. The best way to get an editor’s attention, especially if you’re relatively new to the game or not very high up on the “publishing credits” ladder, is to offer an idea that no one else can do—but YOU! Is it an exclusive interview with someone who’s turning down everybody else? Is it a story that only you know about? Are you the sole expert in this subject? Own a story up and down and you’ll have a huge advantage like you never had before.

2) Always push for more work. Once you’ve made headway with a publication—which means you’ve built up a mutual trust and respect with an editor or editors—keep asking for more assignments or keep pitching ideas. Writing can often be a momentum business. Don’t stop the flow. Also, if you have a published story on the stands, it’s the best time to pitch editors at other places. You’ll seem like the hot commodity of the moment.

3) Rejection should only be the beginning, not the end. Two things to consider here: A. Just because a publication nixes your story idea—or you in particular—doesn’t mean the next place will do the same. If you believe in yourself and your idea, never give up on it. B. Just because a publication rejects you outright doesn’t mean the same place won’t accept you six months later. At most places, there’s high turnover. Editors, as well as mission statements, change quickly.

4) Don’t hang all your hopes on resumes, clip packages, and query letters. Go into any high-level editor’s office and you’ll see stacks of unopened envelopes that nearly reach the ceiling. You’re annoyed, or depressed, that an editor hasn’t gotten back to you? Don’t be. He or she likely hasn’t even seen the contents of your envelope yet—and may never. Make phone calls (without being a stalker). Make meetings (without being demanding). In the writing game, as in most businesses, relationships matter more than anything in an envelope.

5) Learn to negotiate for more money. No matter what a publication offers, it’s often way less than it can afford. Always express mild disappointment at the first number, then pleasantly, professionally, ask for a little more. Understand that I don’t suggest this method for rank beginners. You’ll risk losing the assignment. It’s also running before learning to crawl. But for anyone with decent experience, you’ll gain greater respect by not jumping at the first number thrown at you. Also, if in the end a place refuses to budge on the story fee, ask for something else that doesn’t cost them money, such as your byline bigger or your name—and story teased—on the front cover. Or simply agree to do the story at their price for now (make it seem like you’re doing this out of the goodness of your heart) but, if they love the final product, that the next one will have to pay more. Always have a strategic plan when negotiating a story deal (have an answer ready for anything that might come up) and always get it in writing.

6) Whatever writing you do, try your best to be utterly unique and way above average. You want to put yourself in position where a publication or publisher can’t get what you do from any other writer. This is what gets the big jobs and the big dollars and the big careers.

7) Don’t beg. Always act as if you’re confident in your work and yourself, exuding an attitude that says, “I’d love to do this story for you, I really would, but if you’re not sure that you want it, I’m certain that some other publication will.” In other words, never show weakness, because editors will pick up on that and run away from it.

Don’t be a pest or a complainer or unprofessional. Editors will always choose the path of least resistance, wanting to work with writers that carry the least amount of baggage and write the cleanest, most thorough copy. Maybe if you win the Pulitzer, you’ll gain some extra rope. But until then, you best be a writer that editors love to work with.

9) Keep making baby steps upward. Don’t get too comfortable at a certain level. Keep challenging yourself. This will force you to make the work better and better, as well as help you make more and more money.

10) Don’t worry so much about people stealing your ideas. At the major publications, it hardly, if ever, happens. Plus, assuming you’re hitting a smaller, less trustworthy market, you should have so many ideas that if someone steals one that it wouldn’t matter in the least, because you have dozens upon dozens of them. The writing business is an idea business. If you don’t have ideas gushing out of your brain on a daily basis, you might want to try some other work.

You can find Michael at http://mikeswritingworkshop.blogspot.com/

You may also follow him on Twitter http://twitter.com/MikeGeffner

Michael Geffner

New York, United States Writer/Journalist/Columnist. Awarded for outstanding column and feature writing by APSE (Associated Press Sports Editors) 2005, 2006; won New York Publishers Association’s contest for Distinguished Sports Writing, 2007; included seven times in annual Best American Sports Writing anthology; voted Best Sportswriter in New York City by New York Press, 1990; won first place for profile writing by the Society of Professional Journalists (NJ), 2000; interviewed former President Nixon (twice, about baseball), Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (at his home atop a hill in Beverly Hills), Dennis Hopper (during a round of golf in Simi Valley), Forest Whitaker (via cell phones while he was driving around Los Angeles), Derek Jeter (by his Yankee locker); written for USA Today, The Associated Press, Details, The Sporting News, Cigar Aficionado, Texas Monthly, Page Six Magazine, FHM, The Writer, and The Village Voice.

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So, I am sitting at a DARA (Dalla Area Romance Writers Association) lunch, and the topic of websites comes up. Everyone at the table agrees that yes you need a website, and many of them start talking about how easy it is to make one.  They start spouting their web addresses to one another, and I quietly start typing the addresses into my phone’s web browser.

I open one, it’s a picture of a woman with a quick byline.  Not bad, kind of boring, but not entirely ridiculous or anything. Then I open  up another, a black background with a dancing leprechaun next to some really great writing.

No joke.

You can make a great looking website for free.  Don’t try to make it yourself.  Download a pre-made template and just stick your information in the appropriate places.  Easy as that.

How? By using simple blogging platforms.  The two most common are blogger and wordpress. If you don’t want to settle for one of the boring premade themes, there are tons of free themes out there, all you have to do is download them and upload them in the appropriate box. (If you can attach a file to an email, then you have the basic concept down already.)

Here are a couple of really great blogger template websites I have found. A lot of web designers give away free templates in order to promote their business.  Take advantage of these.)

Better In Pink

The Cutest Blog on the Block

So, just sign up, start a blog and use a cute theme and you’re set with a perfect little blog!  Simple as that.  There are many other costly solutions, but if you are just starting out, you don’t need those, and you can always import it later.

Have fun!

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