Here I am after another 12-hour Sunday. Only a small portion of this “work” day has been spent writing new short stories or adding another chapter to my novels in progress. No, today was the last of many grueling days that I and a very close friend worked on the pl-word. That dirty little word is the unexpected and dreaded …platform.

In all seriousness, building an online presence a.k.a. platform can be a lot of fun. It can also be very time consuming and frustrating, even if you happen to know someone who is great at building websites and all other things techie. The reason I’m addressing this in my first “tip” blog is because I wish I’d known about it sooner.

Go ahead and start planting the seeds of your not-yet-famous-name now. I said NOW. Any short story, article, anything you have written, get it put up on your webpage or submitted for consideration by a magazine or e-zine as soon as its finished.

The basic reason for an Internet presence is to get your name out there. then when you send that first query letter to an agent, you can say, “Hey. Just look how many fans I already have.”  I suggest the book by Stephanie Chandler, The Author’s Guide to Building an Online Platform. Now that my website is up, I can get back to writing. Whew!

Write well,

Suza