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I have been working on building my tribe. Women with a shared interests of writing multicultural children’s books. As writers, it has gotten to a point that publishing companies don’t want to consider your work if you don’t have a platform. Just last month a publishing company reach out to me for a custom project. One of the first things they wanted to know was what kind of social media following I have to get the word out once the book is published.
That conversation has inspired me to strengthen my author platform. Now, more than ever, we are living in an age of influencers. In years past, you had to be a well-known celebrity, politician, or leader to be considered an influencer. If you were just an average person, nobody paid much attention to you.
Then the internet, social media, and smartphones came along and changed everything. Now, literally anyone can build an audience and become an influencer. You don’t have to be famous. You don’t have to be good looking. You don’t have to have access to the halls of power.
You just need to know how to create content that interests people.
One of the best things about social media is that it allows people to find others like them. It makes it easier to form “tribes” around narrow shared interests. And within every tribe, there are influencers. I’m not talking about becoming a mega-influencer with a 100,000 people or more. I’m striving to be a micro- influencer of a 1,000 or more people who care about my niche of writing multicultural children’s books. For you that number might be a lot higher.
What is Your Niche?
The first step in becoming an influencer is choosing a niche. Success may come quicker by picking a specific niche in which to build your audience. The goal is to create content that interest people in your niche. Because you’ll be making so much content for these fans it should be something you enjoy and in which you have some amount of expertise.
The niche you choose should be broad enough that you can build a sizable following. If the niche is too narrow, not enough people will be interested in the content you produce.
When choosing your niche, ask yourself these questions:
- What am I good at?
- What do I like to do?
- What problems can I help people solve?
- What value can I deliver to my audience?
- What can I offer that no one else does?
- What are my unique skills?
Your goal is to find a niche that is broad enough that many people will care but narrow enough so that you can stand out. One way to do this is to start at a wide level and progressively narrow it down to a certain specialty, or sub-category of the broader niche.
For example, I write children’s books. That is the broad category. I teach beginners to write their first book. That is a sub-category. I teach multicultural mothers to write their first children’s book. Narrows it even further to focus on my niche.
Before you finalize your niche do some research around what you love to do and are good at. See what is out in the marketplace now. And decide what you new twist will be.
Big News
This month my new children’s storybook is being released; My Mama is Flying That Plane.
Teach your little girls that they can be and do anything they set their hearts on with a little determination and hard work! Celebrating the little-known history of African-American aviation pioneers, this inspirational book, set in the early 1930s, shares the story of Janet and her older sister Bess (named after the first Black female pilot Bessie Coleman and her contemporary Janet Waterford Bragg). The girls learn the meaning of courage and determination when their Mama loses her job but seizes the opportunity to chase her dreams of becoming a pilot.
It’s currently, available on Amazon.com and I hope you share a copy with a child ages 5 to 8 you know.
All the Best,
Donna
Donna Beasley
Publisher, Author, Writing Coach