Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Blogging for Platform

I often suggest that writers I'm working with start blogs to start building a platform around their book. My colleague Ashton (of the post below, and not a coaching client of mine, btw) has done just a good job of that, I wanted to send her a shout out and make her blog visible as a model for others of you who are trying to do the same. Again, the site is called So When Are You Going to Retire, and what I love about it is that Ashton has included lists on the side called "Stories I'm hearing," "Stuff I'm reading," "Questions I'm asking," "Zeitgeist," and then she also has a bibliography link. These categories are great not only for folks interested in her work (whether interest means participating or coverage) but also for Ashton, who can then go back to these links later as she's ready to return to this material for the book. She's also written, right up top, the following: "questions? critiques? stories? please comment or email me" to encourage reader response.

Has anyone seen other examples of good platform building blogs? If so, please add them in comments!

1 comment:

Ashton Applewhite said...

thanks much, Deborah. I modeled my blog shamelessly on experiments with scholars conducted by the Institute for the Future of the Book — http://www.futureofthebook.org/. your readers might want to take a look at Without Gods or The Googlization of Everything for more examples of the community-building i hope to achieve.