Hello !

Welcome to 5 Mistakes Writers Make When Building Their Author Platform!

Before we jump in, please hit reply and send me your response to the following question:

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WHO I AM & WHAT TO EXPECT

As you know, I'm Li Yun Alvarado: Poet, Parent, and Puerto Rican. ¡Wepa! I've been a published poet since 2008 and my chapbook Words or Water was published by Finishing Line Press in 2016. I also have a PhD in English from Fordham University.

I’m no book marketing expert (yet!). I am, however, a huge nerd (they don’t call me Dr. Alvarado for nothing), and I've gobbled up information on this topic for the last two years.

This email series is an early attempt at translating some of that material into easily digestible and actionable information for you, a valued member of my writer familia.

Over the next five weeks, you'll receive an email each Tuesday that will take a deep dive into one of the five mistakes and will discusses how to avoid or address that mistake.

My goal with this series is to get you thinking strategically about what most people call “Author Platforms.”

In these emails I outline a grassroots approach meant to compliment (not replace) more traditional marketing strategies that well-resourced publishers execute and that scrappy authors and indie authors take on all by themselves.

I'll challenge you to reframe your thinking about author platforms. I’ll also offer reflection questions and concrete actions meant to help you make progress towards your own writer goals.

My framework is meant primarily for writers who are just starting out or are relatively early on in their writing careers, though those who are farther along will likely find useful information here as well.

WHAT I'M NOT OFFERING

This email series is not a get followers quick scheme.

I am not teaching about growing your followers for the sake of growing your followers. You’ll understand and appreciate why that’s not my focus in the next few weeks. 

If you signed up looking for tactics to grow your followers fast, then feel free to read the #PoetryPause above and skip the rest (no hard feelings!) because my approach might not match up with what you were expecting.

I hope you’ll stay around though and find some actionable takeaways in the lessons I do have to share! 

As always, feel free to hit reply and ask me any questions you have as you work through these materials in the coming weeks.

P.S. Don't forget to hit reply and answer the following question: What is your biggest challenge when it comes to building your author platform?

It might seem counterintuitive to start here, but it’s important to point out that some writers focus too much on platform building at the expense of their writing.

I’m guilty of this one myself.

Weeks spent mindlessly scrolling FB. Days creating the perfect image and choosing the right hashtags for IG. Hours spent shooting off long, meandering twitter rants — I mean threads.

This stuff can take days and days and days out of your writing life.

Now think about this: if you’re not even writing for that audience you’re so busy trying to get in front of, what’s the point?

Or maybe you’re writing, but not investing enough time and attention to revising, crafting, creating work that’s truly excellent.

Again, I ask you, what’s the point?

For some of us, the platform building feels like the easy part.

If that's the case for you, working on platform can inadvertently become the part of your writing life that you use for what I like to call “productive procrastination” (again guilty as charged).

Now I’m a big believer in seasons of life. 

There will be seasons when focusing more on platform than writing makes sense.

Sometimes it makes sense personally: for me it’s been much easier and more fruitful to work on my community building activities than deep writing work during this season when I have very small children at home.

Sometimes it makes sense professionally: when your book is gearing up to launch, your focus might need to be on connecting with all those potential readers.

I say embrace and adapt to shifting seasons, AND also please keep coming back to the core: your writing!

Tackling Mistake #1

Here are some suggestions for tackling Mistake #1.

• Get crystal clear on your WRITING goals and ambitions first. Then prioritize making time for striving towards those goals. If you’d like support around intention and goal setting, click here to get on the waitlist for my workbook: "Write Your Year." When you click on the link, you'll also receive the popular "Five W's" worksheet that's in the workbook.

• Think strategically (and intuitively) about your platform. Doing so will save you time—time you can then use for your writing. I’ll talk more about strategy and intuition later this month. Stay tuned!

Reflection Questions

• Have you ever prioritized platform building over your writing?
  
• Was it a good idea, a necessity, or a mistake?
  
• How can you make sure you prioritize your writing even as you tend to your community of readers?

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