Honesty is the best policy, to yourself. It doesn’t help anyone to write a book or blog about a computer software that you aren’t interested in. Its ok if you don’t know anything about the thing you want to write about, you can always learn. BUT it will be obvious if you don’t care about it. Embarrassingly, it took me a while to figure out what I do care enough about to write. I had to take a long hard look at what drove me, what I naturally studied or read about, what I thought about when I didn’t have to and most importantly what message I wanted to get across. One of my problems is that I really don’t know myself very well. I know what my goals are, my expectations of myself, my history, but I am not very good about reading me at the present. After all this study and research, I realized I was making things way too complicated. If I try to be something I am not, it won’t work, won’t stick and will all-around bomb. Go simple. What will make today a good day? An event, a project, a book, an activity, a person, a place. Start there. In the end a pattern will emerge, your style, your motif, your YOU. For my day today to be great, I had to exercise my body and mind. So here I am, gym – check, blog post – check, now I need to log some novel time. Has a pattern emerged yet? prolly not, but I am being myself. The rest will follow. be yourself <heart> Kate

One of the things that I come across all the time is that it is important for authors (and many other creative types with a profit goal) to build their own platforms. But what is an author platform? It is just what it sounds like, something that elevates the author and brings attention to them and their work. (Blogs, websites, newsletters, appearances, etc…) After reading a lot of information about platform building for authors, I have noticed that the first thing you should do is “Identify Your Target Audience”.  But how does one do that? I think the best way to start is to identify a few things about yourself. – What are you known for now, as an author, friend, worker… and what do you want to be known for? – What are you interested in? What things do you find yourself doing when you aren’t really thinking about it? (Writing, Drawing, Baking, Cleaning… Bird-watching…) – Why are you writing? What message are you trying to tell? – Who is going to read what you write… or more informatively, who is NOT going to read what you write? All these questions should help you narrow down your “focus” or “niche”. Maybe you 1) are goofy 2) love baking and 3) trying to tell the world about homelessness. So maybe you focus your site on funny things that happen as you make mass amounts of food to feed people living on the streets. With that in mind, you may not get young children or profit-minded individuals interested but that just means that your website/blog doesn’t have neon children’s games or “how to get your franchise to earn 1mil$”. You have somewhat honed in your optimal readership. Granted this is just a simple, broad example and you should narrow down your readership just a little more, but I think you get the idea. If you answer those questions honestly, you will probably come up with a unique angle to start your platform development. And don’t worry that someone else out there is using your idea. Even if someone else has the exact same answers to the questions (which is highly unlikely) the way that you both proceed with that information will naturally be different. Be Yourself <heart> Kate