Author Platform

...not exactly what I had in mind. The platform I'm talking about is the foundation for an author's marketing. Now that you have created a brand (from last week's blog), you need to think about your author platform. Here is a list of what every basic author platform should have:

• a website 
• a blog 
• a Facebook Fan Page 
• a Twitter account 
• a G+ account 
• a Pinterest account 
• an Instagram account
• you can add others to this list, but these are the main pages all authors should be working with for branding and marketing. 

Branding and marketing are two separate things. We talked about branding in last week's blog; that's what you do to get your author name recognized. Marketing is what you do to get your product (your book) recognized and to generate sales of your product.

A couple of other things you can add to your platform--ways to promote your product to create interest and heighten sales--are a tagline and a logo. A tagline is a slogan that will help readers recognize you as the author and the kinds of books you write. For instance, racy romance author Jackie Collins, who is extremely well known in her genre, uses the tagline, "She'll keep you up all night."  But a reader who may not know who she is gets an idea of what her books are about by that little tagline on her website or book cover. 

A logo is a visual symbol that identifies your books. These are especially good when writing a series. Take a look at the Hidden Earth Series by Janet Beasley; she has a logo which tells you which of her books belong to that series by putting the same logo on every cover (you can see it at the top of the two latest books in the series): 

Remember, your books aren't going to sell themselves until you are a well known author, so it's up to you to do the necessary marketing to make that happen. Now get to work on creating that all-too-important platform so you can become an author whose name is familiar each time readers hear or see it.

The Colon (punctuation, not anatomy)

colon  : 

   "Is it really necessary?"   YES!
   "Can't I just use commas instead?"   NO!
   "When and where do I use it?"    The use of colons is really quite simple, and the distinctions they make in your writing will greatly improve your reader's understanding of the point you are trying to make. According to The Chicago Manual of Style, 16th edition, "A colon introduces an element or a series of elements illustrating or amplifying what has preceded the colon." For instance, The "Fresh Catch of the Day" could be ordered in one of three ways: deep fried, pan fried, or broiled. 
   "The colon should generally convey the sense of 'as follows' or 'the following'." For instance, The order is as follows: your right foot goes forward, your left foot goes to the side, your left foot then slides close to the right, you crouch and clap your hands.
  The colon is used when introducing a sequence of sentences. For instance, Kamya faced a conundrum: She could continue her speech as if she intended to delete the entire section. She could try to fit it in at another point in her speech. She could apologize to her audience, saying she had failed to cover a very pertinent point and would like to talk about it even though it should have been covered earlier.   
   Regarding the spacing after a colon, in typeset matter there should not be more than one space following the colon. When used within a sentence, the first word following a colon should be lowercase (as in the first and second examples above). When a colon introduces two or more sentences (as in the third example above), the first word following it is capitalized.
   Colons have lots of other uses, as well, such as in subtitles, indexes, source citations, URLs, mathematical expressions, introducing a speech in dialogue or an extract, at the beginning of a speech or a formal communication where it follows the identification of those being addressed (e,g., Ladies and Gentlemen:  or To Whom It May Concern:  or Dear Marketing Management Associates:) or when it introduces a direct question. It is also used in plays when introducing a character's dialogue, such as Rachel: I already told you I don't want to go.
                            Nathan: But it'll be fun. You'll see. 
In addition, it can be used to introduce a quotation "either where the syntax of the introductions requires it or to more formally introduce the quotation," like Charles Dickens, author of A Tale of Two Cities, begins his book with a famous line that is often quoted: "It was the best of times. It was the worst of times."
   Of course, there are times when a colon should not be used. For example, if the series is the object of a verb, the objects are simply separated with commas (e.g., The organist played the prelude, the hymns, and the recessional. NOT The organist played: the prelude, the hymns, and the recessional.) And a colon should not be used after namely, for example, such as, or other similar expressions.
   Now that's not so hard. Don't let those two little vertical dots frighten you. Put them to good use.