The 31-Day Author Platform Challenge

Challenge reminder

“31 Day Author Platform Challenge” Prep

I know we’ve got a bunch of people that are finding out about the 31 Day Author Platform Challenge late and/or are just starting. Welcome! This challenge can begin at any time, so don’t feel rushed to catch up on every past day to match where we are now. Take the time to do each task properly! I wanted to be sure you start out on the same right foot the rest of us did.

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31 Day Author Platform Challenge Day 9: Why a Newsletter?

[Before we start, have you followed 10 new people yet?] Talk Directly to Those Who WANT to Hear From You Why are we talking about newsletters today? One of the problems with social media is that it casts a wide net. Everyone from everywhere is scrolling and watching. You never know who is paying attention so you never know if what you’re saying is being heard. Think about placing a billboard on a busy freeway. Yes, a TON of people will see it. But are they the right people? I mean, what do you know about those people? They have…

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Photo by Alexandr Drobyshev on Pexels.com

31 Day Author Platform Challenge Day 11: Magnet Ideas

Today we are coming up with a list of 10 things you can offer as a freebie—your lead magnet— as an incentive to get people to sign up for your newsletter’s mailing list. It has to be not only good, but enough…enough for them to hand over their precious email address and agree to stomach yet another barrage of emails.

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Bitsy’s pocket office

31 Day Author Platform Challenge Day 19: Being Real

Today, Day 19 I insist you have some fun creating a “My view today” video. And by that I mean, a 10-25 second video of what you are looking at, at the moment. That’s it, that’s all it’s going to be. Sort of like a BeReal, if you know what that is.

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31 Day Author Platform Challenge Day 24: TIL Video

“TIL” Today I Learned Maybe it’s a hack on scrambling eggs, or a shortcut in folding laundry, but odds are you learned something recently. Today, Day 24 of the 31 Day Author Platform Challenge, you are going to share that learning. Via video! (You need to get more comfortable in video. It’s the future!) And “TIL” is all the rage right now, so let’s hop on board. My recent key learning is a time saver called a “macro” which lets you type in a few letters and have your pc fill in the rest. It’s called a macro. It’s hugely…

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31 Day Author Platform Challenge Day 25: SEO

Today, Day 25 of 31 Day Author Platform Challenge, we’re going back to your website and looking into “SEO” or “search engine optimization” which is a fancy way of saying “making sure your website has the right words for search engines to notice, so it pops up early in search results.”

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31-Day Author Platform Challenge: Prep Day

Getting Ready to Rumble

Before we start the challenge, grab a fresh new notebook in order to create a new “31-Day Author Platform Challenge To Do List.” Or, create a new Word Doc or new To Do list on your phone (the Notes or Keep apps work well). You’ll want ONE separate and central place to keep track of all your thoughts, notes, and To Dos this month–of which there may be many!

Any task you don’t need to tackle because you’ve already completed, you can come back to this list and pick something to work on. Any day you complete in a flash or any time you have a few extra minutes, come back to this list.

Also, I wanted to clarify some things. I am making an assumption here, that you not only KNOW what an author brand is, but that you HAVE or are WORKING ON one. I’m not defining or going into detail on what an author brand means here because that’s a whole different can o’ worms. But when I talk about your personal brand, I am referring to how you present yourself to the public, how you are seen/viewed by readers, agents, editors, fellow writers/artists, and anyone else paying attention. Scribe Media describes it this way: “Book positioning tells someone why your book is the right book for them. Author branding tells someone why they should read your book, as opposed to anyone else’s.” I’d add to it by saying it tells people why to follow you vs someone else.

That means my assumption is you have already thought about how you are presenting your unique qualities, the ones that “brand” you as a person, as a writer, or artist. (To not confuse your brand with your image, scroll halfway down this blog post: https://bitsykemper.com/2016/03/10/creating-an-author-platform/.)

For help on creating an author brand, find great posts by Rocket Expansion, NY Book Editors, and PW here, here, and here.

If you DON’T have a brand, or haven’t given it a thought, now is the time! Everything we do over the next 31 days will be supporting it. But if yours isn’t defined yet, don’t panic and bail. What you do over the next 31 days can help you figure out and hone your brand so you’ll be better prepared when you’re ready to define it.

For now, just be thinking about your brand as an author (NOT your book’s brand or image). We’ll spend time working on it throughout the month.

Recap:

  1. Get a new notebook to capture To Do list
  2. Refer to To Do and complete and item on list when you have an easy day or free time
  3. If you aren’t familiar with the term “author brand” check out the three provided links
  4. Don’t use lack of a solid brand as an excuse to bail (nice try, though)
  5. Have your author brand in the back of your mind at all times this month

Now get some rest and be ready to start on the first of the month!

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