Platform in a Box

Thinklings completely understands why big publishers want authors with platforms. The world is a noisy place, and getting your voice heard is a challenging endeavor. From my experience helping dozens of writers develop their platforms, I know how tricky it can be. And how time-consuming. It’s much easier, and cheaper, to find people with existing platforms than to advertise them through the marketing department. Even if a publisher finds a book they are in love with, they may not publish it if the author has no presence online.

So what is a writer supposed to do? Put aside her writing time to work on publicity? Not sleep? Give up leisure? Stop spending time with his family?

​Fortunately, Thinklings has come up with a solution. We call it “Platform in a Box.” 

Platform in a Box was born from my (Jeannie’s) experience with giving writers the best quick tips for growing a small but loyal following, while spending as little time and as little budget as possible. 

Platform in a Box is not designed to make you a social media darling overnight. Its main goal is to make you visible to those who would be interested, and to keep their interest. You may never get more than 500 people on your mailing list, but your mailing-list subscribers will actually read your letters and buy your books whenever they come out. We’re looking to hook you up with your community, not prostitute you out to the world to boost sales of your books. Yes, it will help you sell more books, but more importantly, it will help encourage you and prod you on to writing more books, better-quality books. Because writing alone and without acknowledgement is dangerous to quality writing.

With that said, what does Platform in a Box contain?

1. Your general marketing plan, which includes: your target markets, hashtags, and high-level keywords; PDF files of posters; a press release; a list of professional reviewers, bloggers, local festivals, and applicable events; a short guide on how to get your book in local indie bookstores; and a few other goodies.
2. The Thinklings style guide, which briefs you on our company style, tone, photo scheme, iconography, and verbiage, including what we stand for and what we won’t tolerate in our employees or authors. Basically, don’t be a meanie. 
3. A simple website, which contains a blog, along with step-by-step instructions on how to post the blogs, what to post, and when/how often to post.
4. Two social media platforms of your choice, along with detailed photos of steps on how to post, schedule posts, and backdate them. Plus times of day to post, how to share Thinklings posts, where to find common-use photos, how to get more followers without paying for them, and more tricks and tips that will make social media as painless as possible. 
5. How to build your “street team” of fans, which includes easy-to-hand-out bookmarks on how to support your author and a link or QR code to a blog on our website with more details.
6. Resources and informational guides, should you want some deeper-level knowledge

This may seem like a lot to run through and expect of authors, and I’m not going to lie: It is a bit! But when you take into consideration what authors with huge platforms do on a regular basis, it’s nothing. During the launch of your book, pre-orders, and learning, you’ll be spending more time on the book, but eventually, Platform in a Box is designed to work in an hour per week. Upfront during publishing, we hope that you won’t have to spend more than five to ten hours per week. Typically, the time you spent writing for about four to six weeks will be devoted to marketing the book. After that, we want you to get to work on your next book. We want repeat authors!

Thinklings also doesn’t expect authors to do all this alone. Ali, our managing editor / hive queen, will be available to help troubleshoot, give tips and advice, and handle other marketing and platform-related tasks that we don’t expect you to do.

What you are not expected to do:

1. Pay for commercial advertisements for the book, but you can print your poster PDF and post it around town or send the press release to your local newspaper. We aren’t in your area, so local and free things are in your court. We’ll handle and pay for Amazon advertising, social media advertising, etc. 
2. Handle Thinklings Books–level marketing of the book, which includes SEO, Thinklings mailing lists, crowdfunding for your book, videos, etc.
3. Developing and implementing the marketing strategy for your book. We promise to deliver everything for you ready to go. You don’t have to do hours of research and trial-and-error to figure out what works. 

Things we will do together:
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1. Get you into your local independent bookstores. We’ll give you a list of independent bookstores, along with a guide for what to say, whom to talk to, tips on consignment, and what to do if someone other than the author needs to book engagements. (Call us up! Have your street team do that!)
2. Sign you up for awards. We all love an accolade! Some awards need to be applied for by the publisher and some by the author. We’ll let you know which ones you need to apply for and how to do it.
3. Find easy-for-you-to-attend book fairs, writers’ conferences, etc. You let us know how much and how far you can travel, and we’ll send you book fairs and conferences that match.
4. Book signings and speaking engagements. We like for writers to do at least one book signing. However, we know that not everyone likes public speaking, or being out in public, or even being in a crowd. So, we’ll help you with as few or as many as you want. 

And that’s the Platform in a Box in a nutshell. It is a full book. A short one, but still a book. We are planning on having a generic one available to purchase online through Amazon. Most of what we say is applicable for all authors of speculative fiction. 
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Jeannie Ingraham

Jeannie lives in a magic lamp with a dragon and a pirate. Her author/editor/consultant website is www.jeannieingraham.com. ​