Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach

By Ann KroekerBusiness Education Arts Books Self-Improvement Marketing

Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach episodes

February 03, 2017 Ep 87: You Can Impact Readers Right Now through Social Media
In episode 86, we discussed first steps you can take to launch your social media presence. I suggested you could start simple and slow by establishing a bare-minimum presence at each of the big social media platforms. I encouraged you to secure your avatar, your handle, your username—ideally using your author name—and fill out your […]
7 min
January 26, 2017 Ep 86: Your Writing Platform - First Steps to Launching Your Social Media Presence
When people talk about building a platform, they often think immediately of social media. I suppose it’s because the word “platform” is often used to describe them: Facebook is a social media platform, Twitter is a social media platform. It’s referring more to the technology that makes it possible for that service to run. But […]
7 min
January 18, 2017 Ep 85: Now Is the Time to Start Building Your Platform
There’s a proverb that says “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” It’s true of so many things, isn’t it? We would be in such a different place if only we had started years ago. Building a platform might feel a little bit like that, […]
5 min
January 12, 2017 Ep 84: Your Writing Platform - Do People Expect Writers to Be Speakers?
Last week I volunteered to serve at a speech and debate tournament for junior high and high school students. One of the women I served with asked if I thought writers were expected to speak more than ever before, whether through all the video options that are popping up like Facebook Live, or in person […]
6 min
January 04, 2017 Ep 83: Your Writing Platform: What’s the Definition of Platform (and Do I Really Need One)?
At a writing conference a few years ago, I attended a panel discussion that included acquisitions editors from several publishing houses and a couple of literary agents.
I’d been wanting to meet one of the agents, so after the session, I stood in line to introduce myself. I told him I was a writing coach working with several authors who were developing book proposals. These authors had questions about platform.
“What kind of numbers are agents and publishers really looking for?” I asked. “And how would I know if I have an author you might be interested in?"
He said he couldn’t speak for all agents or publishers, but as an example of the platform size he was looking for, he would only consider authors with a minimum of 10,000 Twitter followers.
Platform: Numbers Matter
I asked another literary agent the same question recently, especially regarding platform. Though she didn’t commit to 10,000 as the ideal, she said numbers do matter.
“It’s not me,” she said. "It’s the publishers. They’re the ones asking for us to bring them authors with significant platforms because they want to guarantee a certain number of sales.”
Authors as Business Partners
Chad R. Allen, editorial director for Baker Books, said in an interview that when he’s reviewing book proposals, he always has three things in mind: "concept, platform, writing.”
After he looks at the book idea to see if it’s a fresh, marketable concept, he then turns to the author bio, to learn about the author "not only in terms of how good a writer they are, but also in terms of what are their connections, what’s their platform, what is their ability to bring exposure to their own book.”
He says, "Authors are artists–we all know that–but they are also business partners, particularly when they sign a book contract.”
Chad said, "The #1 reason we turn books down is no platform or lack of platform.”
Definition of Platform
So we can’t ignore the need for platform, but still…what is it?
Chad offered a quick definition when he said he wants to learn about a writer’s connections and their ability to bring exposure to their own book.
Literary agent Chip MacGregor says essentially the same thing: "a platform is simply the number of people you can reach with your words.”
He then lists several ways you can reach people: through speaking events, a blog, articles in other publications, television or radio appearances, leadership positions that would give you influence over a large group or organization. Chip says, "All of those are points of contact with potential readers…[A]dd up the audiences for all the ways in which you reach out, and that’s your platform."
That’s what it comes down to: How do you reach people with your words and can you reach more of those people?
Does Your Platform Reach the Right People?
Literary agent Rachelle Gardner emphasizes that "the key to platform is your target audience and what you are doing to reach them.”
In other words, who cares if you have 10,000 Twitter followers if they aren't the target readers of your next book?
If I plan to publish a cookbook for backpackers but have been building a huge connection with business professionals focused on developing powerful speaking skills simply because I have an interest in both of those topics…I may need to rethink my strategies and find ways to build up a following among outdoor enthusiasts, campers, and, well, backpackers. I could write articles for Backpacker Magazine and join forums that talk about gear and destinations and food as some platform-building efforts.
Or I could write a different book. About speaking techniques for business professionals.
The point is: build a relevant platform.
7 min
December 30, 2016 Ep 82: Plan a Sustainable Year for Your Writing Life
It’s that time of year when everyone is working on their annual business plans, intentions, resolutions, habits—or even big, hairy, audacious goals, those BHAGS. Or “stretch” goals.
A lot of writers are thinking through their goals for the year ahead.
You may be measuring and drawing out calendar grids in your bullet journal or shopping for a bright, new, fresh yearly planner. You’re organizing and reorganizing Evernote tags and Notebooks. You’re trying out productivity apps. You’re going to test run a new social media platform. Maybe you decided this is the year to write your first book, so you set up a Word document or Scrivener file with the working title, as a promise to make progress.
You can imagine that as a coach, I love all of that dreaming, all that energy, all that desire and hope. I’m so happy you’re making plans and experimenting—maybe setting out to launch a new project.
Go for it.
Make those plans. Set those goals. Write out your intentions and resolutions. Stretch and get a little audacious.
And then, before you lock everything in, may I make a suggestion?
Run it through one more grid. Because I’d hate for you to get deep into the second quarter and realize you can't possibly keep up with the pace you set for yourself. You can’t turn out the daily word count you set up, or you were unrealistic about how fast you could land a byline in a national publication.
I encourage you to look ahead with the idea of sustainability.
The word “sustainable” traces back to ideas of being able to last or continue over the long haul. But its root word, “sustain," means to give support or relief to, or to supply with sustenance or nourish. I find that to be a satisfying way of looking at our work. So with those ideas of sustenance and nourishment in mind, let’s consider four ways our writing can be sustainable:
1. You can sustain your writing plan if you have enough ideas to keep going
This first idea is obvious. Your writing plan is sustainable only if you have enough ideas. If you set out to publish a blog post five times a week or three times a week, you need enough content to keep that up.
In episode 76, I did some math for you—and believe me, I’m really invested in you to do math for you. In that post, I figured out that to publish twice a week for three years, you’ll need 312 ideas. I was suggesting you brainstorm and see if you can generate a big number in one or two sessions because that would confirm you have plenty of content to keep writing in your niche.
Well, it’s the same principle as you move ahead with your writing plan for the year ahead. You want to be sure you have plenty of content to supply and support the plan. If you have 312 ideas, you’ll have no problem continuing—you’ll be able to move ahead with two articles per week. If you have only 75, perhaps you should reduce your frequency to once a week or broaden your niche so you can generate more ideas.
In any case, the concept here is that if you’ve set up a goal that requires a steady supply of content, make sure you have enough on deck to sustain it.
2. You can sustain your writing plan if the schedule isn’t brutal
This is closely related to the first sustainability challenge, except that you could have 700 ideas ready to go, but if writing still comes a bit slow for you, or if you’re working full time and writing is still a side gig, or if you face other complicated scheduling challenges, those ideas are just going to sit there.
Even efficient writers need time to write and prep content for a blog or freelance submissions or as pieces of a bigger project like chapters for a book. If you don’t have much writing time available, you can have all the ideas in the world and it doesn’t matter if you can’t get them written.
8 min
December 21, 2016 Ep 81: A Gift of Writing
Last time we talked about our writing as a gift to the world, but our writing can be a gift in a more specific, focused way when we write for individuals we know and love.
When our writing is sent out to the world, it's usually enjoyed by one reader at a time, so in a way, all of our writing is for individuals. What I mean here is you can sit down and write for someone in particular—an individual who will be the only intended recipient of a given project.
Maybe you write a long letter to a family member, or you compose a children’s story for your child or grandchildren, or you write a love poem to your significant other. You might write a note to a soldier stationed in another country, a person in prison, or a sponsored child.
One project, for one person.
This is where writing is personal. Sure, the projects we send to publishers are important, offering the potential to reach into circles we might never have connected with on our own, carrying our message far and wide.
And yet the people who have been part of our lives all along, the people who like your posts on Facebook and look for your letters in the mailbox—the person you'd send a sympathy card to? Those people treasure your words. If you write a gift of words specifically for and to them, you're sending a powerful present.
It’s likely your gift of words will be held closer than any book you may write in the future because the book is for many, whereas the gift of words you crafted is a present for that one person alone.
Anne Lamott explains in Bird by Bird how she wrote "books that began as presents.” In her case, they were initially a project for one person and did end up being much more—they were published as books for anyone who might enjoy them. But when she initially sat down to create, she had one reader—one recipient—in mind.
One book was a present to her father and the other, to her best friend, Pammy. Both were people Anne loved; both were people who were going to die (185). Motivated by love and a sense of urgency, she wrote a present for each of them. She explains:
I got to write books about my father and my best friend, and they got to read them before they died. Can you imagine? I wrote for an audience of two whom I loved and respected, who loved and respected me. So I wrote for them as carefully and soulfully as I could—which is, needless to say, how I wish I could write all the time. (194)
We can work on our platform and stick our deadlines when we write on assignment, but when we write for someone we love and respect—when we write out of love—we are giving an inimitable gift.
Stay on track with your professional goals. And if you feel inspired, write someone a present. But whatever you do, as much as possible, write as carefully and soulfully as you can.
Isn’t that how we wish we could write all the time?
Click on the podcast player above or use subscription options below to listen to the full episode.
Resources:
What Do Writers Dream About?
Ep 80: Your Writing as a Gift
Your Writing Platform episode collection
Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, by Anne Lamott (affiliate link)
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You can subscribe with iTunes, where I'd love to have you subscribe, rate, and leave a review.
The podcast is also available Stitcher, and you should be able to search for and find "Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach" in any podcast player.
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Writing is solitary work—but why not include others in aspects of the writing process?
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4 min
December 14, 2016 Ep 80: Your Writing as a Gift
In this season of giving, it seems apt to talk about our writing as a gift.
"Hold on, now," you say. "I was kinda hoping to make some money at this whole writing gig, so are you saying we have to give our words away?"
Whether we're paid or not, isn’t viewing our words as a gift…isn’t that how we begin the process of connecting with people? We toil over our message and send off something for a reader to consider.
“Here. I wrote this for you.”
I recently published a blog post about the longing we writers have for applause—not for how amazing we write or how heroic we might be for sharing the depths of our heart or pain, but to hear the sound of someone responding to the words we've composed and offered. We long to build a bridge from writer to reader. To connect.
Author, poet, and essayist Scott Russell Sanders explains his motivation. In an essay entitled “The Singular First Person," he says, “I choose to write about my experience not because it is mine, but because it seems to me a door through which others might pass” (p. 8, Earth Works).
If we share that mindset, we write to solve someone’s problem or ease their pain or show them we know what it’s like, how it feels. And in writing that down as best we can, we build a door “through which others might pass” or a bridge over which a reader might cross. We create a threshold. Or a safe passage.
A gift.
All of our writing in that sense seems to be a gift, even if we receive payment for it.
Now the funny thing is, literally giving away our work for free can have a literal payoff.
Science fiction author Cory Doctorow partnered with Litographs in an article published on Medium, where Doctorow writes, "I’ve been giving away my books ever since my first novel came out, and boy has it ever made me a bunch of money…”
When the print version of his first novel was published, he made the electronic text available for free at this website as a digital download—a gift—and within a day he saw 30,000 downloads. People “met” him through that free copy—it introduced them to his work. He created an instant audience that suddenly knew him and wanted their friends to know him as well.
“My problem isn’t piracy," he explains, "it’s obscurity, and free ebooks generate more sales than they displace.”
Getting known by readers is a challenge for all of us; obscurity is indeed a problem for those writers trying to build a platform. Giving away some of our work to introduce ourselves could pay off in the long run.
So if you’re kinda hoping to make a little money at this whole writing gig, never fear. View your work as a gift to the world—as a bridge built to create connection or a door opened wide through which others might pass. Pour your heart into it, knowing you might make a difference in someone’s life.
You can sell it. Absolutely. Or you can give it away, expecting no particular gain. Either way, you're holding it out to the world, to a reader, as a gift, saying, "Here. I wrote this for you."
Click on the podcast player above or use subscription options below to listen to the full episode.
Resources:
What Do Writers Dream About?
Why Give Away Your Work for Free? (Medium article featuring Cory Doctorow)
Your Writing Platform episode collection
Earth Works: Selected Essays, by Scott Russell Sanders (includes "The Singular First Person") affiliate link
* * *
You can subscribe with iTunes, where I'd love to have you subscribe, rate, and leave a review.
The podcast is also available Stitcher, and you should be able to search for and find "Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach" in any podcast player.
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5 min
December 07, 2016 #79: Your Writing Platform: Who Is Your Who?
When building a platform, we might be told to build our email list or increase our social media numbers, so we're tempted to do a lot of things maybe before we’re ready—some people advise writers to buy a bunch of Twitter followers or set up an Instagram account even if we don't like taking pictures.
We get so busy trying to follow somebody else’s plan, we forget that before any of those steps, we need to get the basics down. We need to have a solid idea of the main Whos involved.
The First Who…Is You!
In the last episode, I encouraged you to embark on a memoir project regardless of whether you write memoir or nonfiction of any kind. Even if you write science fiction or romance, if you write, you’ll write better if know yourself well. And one powerful way to get to know yourself is to reflect on the events that formed you in big and small ways—moments when you felt a shift or an insight, moments when you changed.
As I’ve said, these personal pieces don't need to be shared publicly, although they could if you felt one would benefit other people. Most importantly, they help you know yourself—you get to know who you are as a person and a writer, continually deepening your understanding of self, even as you evolve. From that place of knowing, you can write with an authentic voice. Make sure that first “Who”—you—is the real you. Know yourself as best you can. Know who you are.
Who Are the Other Whos?
You can call it your ideal reader. The cool kids call it your avatar. It’s your target audience or target market. Today, for simplicity, I thought I’d just call this your “Who.” Not the Whos down in Whoville, but the Whos for whom you are writing. Who is your Who?
When you write, some Whos are out there you're hoping to reach. Right? I mean, that's why we write something and "ship it," whether we submit our work to a publisher or click “publish” on our blog or write Christmas letters that we stamp and mail. We're wanting to reach a reader. Who is that reader?
For most of the content you create with your most important message, who are you trying to reach out to? Who are you talking to? Who are you writing for? Who are you helping, encouraging, entertaining, informing, or persuading? Picture those people—real people: a man, woman, young adult, teen, or child. Who do you imagine reading your words?
Some writers will say, "Everyone!” They want to write for everyone in the whole world. And I appreciate the longing to appeal to the widest possible audience. You can try, but most likely, you’re going to be writing for a narrower audience just as you will, most likely, need to narrow your topic, your focus, and find your niche.
A case in point: I know a lot of people who enjoyed the novel I just finished listening to, All the Light We Cannot See. One could argue it’s written for anyone and everyone to read and enjoy, but I know people who didn’t really like it—it wasn't their style.
The Hunger Games had wide appeal beyond the young adult readers it was written for, but some people didn't want to even consider a story with so much violence—even the concept of the book was too disconcerting. It's not for everyone.
People read books that aren't written with them in mind all the time, like The Hunger Games, but no book is really for everyone. Even if our book or blog post or poem enjoys unexpected reach, we really do write for a segment of the population. If nothing else, you probably write for an English-speaking audience or you wouldn’t be listening to an English-speaking podcaster. Most of my listeners and readers are located in the United States. See how that’s a natural narrowing?
Identify Your Who
How can we figure out who we’re reaching and who we want to reach? Consider some of these questions to help you begin to imagine and identify your ideal reader—your Who:
7 min
November 29, 2016 #78: Your Best Material - The Practice of Remembering
This week I want to encourage you to dip into memories and memoir. Even though this veers from the more obvious platform series we’ve been in, it may, eventually, reveal more about who you are and what you want your platform to be about. I believe it’ll be time well spent. Think back to an […]
7 min

About Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach

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With Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach, you'll gain clarity and overcome hurdles to become a better writer, pursue publishing, and reach your writing goals. Ann provides practical tips and motivation for…