day 5: start building your tribe now

During the month of October, we’re chatting about everything self-publishing—design, branding, marketing, formats—you name it! Pulling questions from Design by Insight clients, Re:Write Conference attendees, and you, we’ll take a look at what can often be a confusing and potentially overwhelming subject. Have a question you’d like me to answer? Leave it in the comments!

Miss a day? Visit the main post for links to each day.

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If you are a writer who wants to share your words with others, you need to understand the principle of tribes. I’m certainly not the first person (or even the 500th) to mention this concept. Still, I find that it’s a struggle for many writers.

Since you’re here, I assume you want to release a book. That means someone needs to read it. How will that happen?

You need a tribe.

Chances are, you already have one. It may be small, but you probably have a group of people who like you, enjoy your writing, and want to help support you in your endeavors.

That’s where you start.

Often people come to me with their book completed. They’re ready to start the design and formatting, wanting to start selling the book as soon as possible. It’s not until this point, or even a bit later, that they start to work on a marketing plan.

That sort of timeline is all jumbled up. If you wait until the book is complete and ready to ship to consider who will buy and how you will market, you will face an uphill battle.

Don’t despair if you’re sitting in that place right now. Your situation is less than ideal, but there are still steps you can take.

Hopefully you aren’t there yet. So what do you do?

Here are a couple of places to focus:

Create an Online Hub

Ideally this will be an author site or a blog. It is a place for you to write, to build community (and yes, that subscriber list), and to present who you are to your audience.

Be Social

The social media options available are overwhelming, but find one or two that work for you. Be consistent and connect!

We’ll be talking more about building an online presence in the coming posts.