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Marketing a dental practice with a book can benefit it greatly. As a dentist, you have fierce competition in your local market and having a published book is just the edge you need to be ahead of the rest.
When you’re a professional, you have a busy schedule that you must stick to. It can be hard to imagine throwing anything else on top of your busy life, let alone the task of writing a book. So, why bother? You might change your mind once you see the effect a book has on your business and professional services.
With a book the first thing you need to realize is that this question of “enough” will be different for everyone depending on the writer’s niche. If you’re writing about something specific—say, eclipse chasing—then your audience is quite a thin slice of a pie, and a smaller platform may be quite impressive in your very specific arena. Heck, you could have 2,500 Twitter followers and that may be enough to get you a small book deal with a university press. If you’re writing about something broad and popular, such as finance, your platform will have to be a lot larger if you hope to impress an agent.The size of your desired book deal also factors in. If you dream of getting paid $50,000 or $100,000 upfront for your book, then your platform must warrant such a large advance. If your goal is simply to get a book published—even if that means with a smaller press that pays little—then platform demands can drop, perhaps drastically.Naturally, when talking about anything subjective, we must acknowledge that there will be exceptions to the rule. I have no doubt somebody can stand up and say, “I didn’t even know what a platform was, but my book got published!” just as there will be someone who says, “My social media numbers are excellent, and I still can’t find a publisher!” What we discuss here are just guidelines; there are exceptions to every rule.
NUMBERS TO AIM FOR—SOME BROAD STROKES
All that being said, let me share some very broad thoughts on what you should be aiming for. These numbers below are directed toward writers of nonfiction, where platform is crucial and mandatory. If you’re writing fiction (where platform is not necessary but still helpful), you can strive for statistics lower than the “Notable” thresholds below and still appear attractive to publishers.
Blog Page Views
Notable: 20,000/month
Very Notable: 100,000/month
Impressive By Any Means: 500,000/month
Twitter Followers
Notable: 5,000
Very Notable: 15,000
Impressive By Any Means: 50,000
Newsletter Subscribers
Notable: 5,000
Very Notable: 20,000
Impressive By Any Means: 100,000
Public Speaking Appearances
Notable: Speaking to 1,000 people (total) a year
Very Notable: Speaking to 3,000 people (total) a year
Impressive By Any Means: Speaking to 15,000 people (total) a year
Sales of Previous Self-Published Books
Notable: 2,000+ for fiction; 4,000+ for nonfiction
Very Notable: 6,000+ for fiction, 10,000+ for nonfiction
Impressive By Any Means: 15,000+ for fiction, 30,000+ for nonfiction
AGENTS CHIME IN: “When is a writer’s platform ready?”
“I think a lot of that is going to both depend on and determine what level of publisher your book is likely to appeal to. There’s no ‘critical mass’ of platform, and, in many cases, there’s going to be a natural plateauing of what you can achieve at this stage since platform feeds the book feeds the platform. Very large commercial publishers are hoping for, and can attract, writers with large national platforms like nationally syndicated columnists. You may be unable to achieve such an accomplishment before you want to submit your book, or your ideal publisher may not require such lofty extremes for your platform. What can you achieve? You may not have a regular column in a big magazine, but if you sell regularly to a number of large pubs, mention the readership of each in your proposal. Maybe you’re blogging for The Huffington Post … Keep in mind that you don’t sacrifice a timely story to continue to build platform and perhaps miss the most opportune window to submit the book. And don’t assume a long history is better than recent history. Publishers want to see recent platform, recent exposure.”
– Gina Panettieri (Talcott Notch Literary Services)
See more information from this web page: (writerunboxed.com)
– This article: How Co-Schedule Makes Scheduling My Social Media Shares Super Easy! Shares tips and tricks with Co-Scheduling stating “We all know that the key to building a speaking and writing ministry today is social media”.
See website here: (writingspeakingplatform.com)
– Grow Your Platform with Public Speaking: Resources, Tips and Advice to Get Started Today : (bufferapp.com)
-101 Quick Actions You Can Take Today to Build the Writer Platform of Your Dreams.
What does it really take to build a writer or author platform?
Money?
Connections?
An intimate knowledge of vampires, wizardry or erotic romance?
Actually, the most important aspect to building an author platform is understanding that it’s about engagement; about connecting and interacting with people who are aligned with your message and affected by your story. Your platform is a web of intertwined beliefs, values, emotions, thoughts, stories, images and ideas that stem from your own core philosophy and are ultimately shared by your fans.
Web page: (yourwriterplatform.com)
-Why Having a Platform May be the Only Way to Sell Books-Not only do we live in a world where anyone can publish but we also live in a world where even if you can’t write a book (or don’t have time) you can hire someone to write it for you – and voila: suddenly you’re a published author. There is an inherent problem with this model which is this: in order to gain any kind of attention for your book, you’re going to have to have a platform.I see this on author calls all the time. I often get authors who come to me with books they’ve written or had ghosted and they have zero momentum online. Meaning little or no blogging, very little in social media, and in some cases, no website. Now, don’t get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with writing a book, having one ghost-written, or publishing a book if you’re a platform virgin. But you must realize that not having a platform will present you as a newbie, to a certain degree, even if you’ve been in your market for dozens of years.
Web page: (huffingtonpost.com)
-Why Building a Platform Is Key for an Author-Platform, in its simplest and most literal definition, is “a raised surface on which things or people can stand.” Think about it. If you have a physical platform and choose to stand on it, you are higher than the people around you. You can see the crowd around you, and they can see you. You are given a voice that travels far above the noise of the chatter below you. And if you stay on the platform for awhile and shout interesting and valuable things, the crowd around you will grow.
In the online world, a platform is just that. It’s a metaphorical raised surface from which you are seen and can speak clearly. It’s influence.
Platform can take shape in many different ways. It can look like any of the below:
Strong blog following
Robust social media network
Connections to influential friends
Vigorous speaking schedule
Long, engaged email list
The factors above are just a few examples, out of a much longer list, of ways that an author can develop a podium–literally or metaphorically–from which to speak. A platform is simply that: a way to get your voice heard.
Generally, one form of platform builds another. When the email list is strong and strategic, the blog following will grow too. Or, when connections to influencers get tighter and more authentic, the speaking schedule grows in width and depth. Platform grows platform, both online and offline.
So, you might ask, why is it important for an author?
In the old days–the pre-internet days–an author could write an awesome book, and the chances of that manuscript alone winning a publishing deal were fairly likely. But now, because of the internet, individual people hold the power to shout to the masses, so we expect proof of that “shouting” power in a book proposal. Publishers now want strong writing… but also proof that the author can sell that writing. Platform is that proof.
** Most publishers will only back strong writing with an author that can sell their writing. This makes having a book build a much larger platform.
Webpage: (chadwickcannon.com)
-Take Back Your Platform-To really understand how to create a useful platform for fiction writers, I think it’s important to talk about what a platform really is.Web page: (thewritepractice.com)
Everything I came across online tied platform building to writers who have a published book but it seems to be a catch 22. To get a publisher to publish a book you also have to create and build a large platform foundation to start off with.
– According to Forbes,a New York Times bestselling authors can command $40K and up per speech. Webpage: (forbes.com)
-How much should you charge? 15 tips on figuring out your speaking fee- (speakerhub.com) This article includes traveling expenses to keep in mind.
-Setting the proper speaking fee requires honestly assessing your value. If you have a history of helping people solve a problem, a reputation for being an expert, or a track record of attracting a lot of people to see you in-person, then you can probably request a substantial fee, such $5,000 – $15,000 depending on the type of event and audience size. However, if no one has ever heard of you and you’re still building your platform, you may have to shoot for a fee in the $500 – $2,500 range.
3.) How much more often are you asked to speak if you have a book?
-Speaking Engagements: Your First Gig as an Author.
With a published book you will be asked to speak more than say someone who is a life coach or a mentor. You have a product that you promote and you try to promote it and yourself (platform) as much as possible. Some first speeches pay will be low until people see what you actually deliver and that is when the demand comes in for public speaking requests.
Many authors speak starting out free at local libraries while at the same time promoting their book. Word of mouth still works wonders even in this technological age we live in.
– This article explains in its title: How to Get More Speaking Gigs: Don’t Wait for Opportunities, Create Them. Here is the link: (huffingtonpost.com)
– If you read this article : Meet five top industry leaders you’ll hear from at WPC 2016 (which came up under top demanded industry speakers) you will see that all five of the speakers: Dean Martin, Carol Roth, J.B. Wood, Kim Garst, Matthias Schranner and Dona Sarkar- are all authors of either best sellers of novels, blogs, articles and even industry heavy specialized authored books. See this article here: (microsoft.com)
Authors are highly demanded as speakers especially if they have written about a specialized knowledge base that they plan on teaching others (think Dave Ramsey and all of his books, CDs and even merchandise he has expanded on).
4.) How much does being a best-selling author increase your revenue in the form of selling books and getting speaking events?
-The Economics of Writing a Book. First-hand knowledge of the process of publishing books, the costs associated and the whole experience.The Book Author’s Guide to Fame and Fortune.This particular author has some personal experience in the book industry. In 2012, I published a nonfiction book with one of the Big Five–the five largest publishers. It was a long, arduous, and intellectually rewarding journey. But my experience demonstrates how even a well-received and modestly successful book is no guarantee of financial success. See this article here: (priceonomics.com)
-Become a Motivational Speaker (Why All Authors Should). This article is written by the same person I linked earlier, the title explains the article in full. Web page is here: (self-publishingschool.com)
-How to Become A Bestselling Author? Website: (bookpromotionhub.com)
-Want to become a bestselling author in the next 90 days? (not a scam has some real statistics here for example: “There are over 11 million books on Amazon – 98% of them are barely seen”. Website is here: (rachelrofe.com)
-How much money does an author make from a best-selling book? 5 people answered this question on this thread, it is linked here: (quora.com)
-Your book is your speech, your speech is your book.