You need to develop your audience well before your book is published, and even before it’s written, as I’ve been showing in previous posts.
It’s all about your platform – building it, developing it, expanding it. This is actually something that certain pastors who’ve become authors have discovered. Take the case of Rick Warren.
The average American might have a vague memory of him leading a prayer t President Barack Obama’s first inauguration. But to those in the world of North American evangelical faith, Rick Warren is a rock star.
A few decades ago, when he first began, no one would have described him that way. In 1980, Warren had only just begun his own modest ministry. He held it for a single family in his living room. Still – he didn’t think small. Warren told this flock of a just a few souls that someday his ministry would have 20,000 members.
He was also saying, in a way, that his platform would be 20,000 people strong. Whether it’s business or religion – or in Warren’s case, both – having a substantial platform has tremendous advantages for building your name, and creating a bestseller out of your book. And he’d underestimated the growth of the platform, too. By the time Rick Warren published his second book, which was his first written for a wider public, his platform had become enormous. His congregation / platform had grown to over 60,000 people.
In addition, tens of thousands of people worldwide received his weekly newsletter. So when Warren published “the Purpose-Driven Life,” he was well positioned for success. Even more than that: “The Purpose-Driven Life” has become one of the bestselling books of our time, selling over 30 million copies.
Rick Warren’s book has made him, his church and his related charities a lot of money. But only because Warren knew how to build and motivate a platform.
Now, what would a book do for you? Answering that question will help you define what your book is, and how you market it through your platform.
We’ll look at one more case of an author using a platform to build a bestseller, in the next post.