Category: Interview

I was thrilled to be able to speak with Arielle Eckstut, chatting about the value of author platform, and how writers can grow their audience and create a writing career.

Arielle is one half of The Book Doctors, which she runs with her husband David Henry Sterry. They are the authors of The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published. Arielle is an agent-at-large at the Levine Greenberg Literary Agency. You can find The Book Doctors on Twitter: @TheBookDoctors.

Some topics we cover:

• Why “author platform” is essential.
• Why it’s so hard to get attention to one’s book, and how writers are now empowered to connect with readers via the web. We also discuss how most authors are not leveraging many of the tools at their disposal.
• What branding is, and why it is so important.
• Why when she publishes a book, she looks at it like a business. She creates a business plan, a publicity and marketing plan, she creates a calendar from the inception of the idea through well after publication. That authors who are entrepreneurs are those who have a better chance of finding an audience.
• How she and her husband come up with ideas for books – often choosing from a list of a dozen, and testing each out before committing to just one. That it’s all about considering things from the audience’s perspective from the very beginning.

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