How to build an audience for your book and your writing. These creative methods work for nonfiction, fiction, and poetry to develop your readership.
Start a Blog
Blogs still rock when it comes to building an audience. If you can be consistent and manage a decent-looking blog, there’s endless benefits. We’ll be talking a lot about blogs on this site so make sure you stick around and sign up to get our newsletter.
If you’re short on money and on time (trust me, I get it). Then check out number 4 on the list for a free website hack that can help drive traffic while also building an email list for your readers!
I personally use SquareSpace for this site, but there are a lot of options out there to choose from.
To keep it free, use WordPress.org to start a blog at no cost!
Write for Medium
Medium.com is a great place for writers to start building an audience while getting paid to write. It’s a nice blend of the passive income and audience building. I mean, it’s free to post and they pay you for traffic. There’s no downside.
Their paid partnership program makes it easy to sign up and start posting stories right away.
Sharing on social media helps but really, you want to learn how to get followers who are paid subscribers. This article will help.
P.S. we’re in the midst of launching a Medium Publisher account. Very soon we’ll be looking for writers to post articles about their writing growth in one (or multiple) of the categories from this site (audience, craft, passive & supplemental income).
So if you’re interested in writing for us, make sure you sign up to our newsletter where new information will be sent out weekly.
Twitter is still the best social media option to build and connect with readers. We’re exploring the future for social media outreach and there’s a major player on the rise for writers. That post can be found here (coming soon!).
Look to the right where you can see the interactions I got from a random tweet I sent. I expected about three ‘likes’. I got a couple more than that. Not sure it could be considered viral, but if you think about how many new potential readers saw my profile, you can see the power of Twitter.
Also, the writing community on Twitter is wildly and ravenously supportive. If you’re not already involved, you should get in now! Be sure to monitor the following hashtags:
#writingcommunity #writerslift #writerlyincome #amwriting #amquerying
Whether you’re new to Twitter or you’re an O.G., be sure to reach out to let me know you read the website. I’m always happy to follow and retweet readers of Writerly Income.
I can be found at @DavidRGwyn and @Writerlyincome.
Come join the community!
Create a Landing Page
This is a potential gold mine for new writers, especially ones with books to sell. If you’re not ready to launch a full website, you can develop a landing page instead. The best part? It’s FREE! Sign up at ConvertKit.com for a free account.
A landing page can house information about you and your book(s). It can also link out to articles you’ve written. Most importantly, it can link to places where people can buy your books.
You can also gather email addresses from people who are interested in your work. This is great especially if you’re working on a series because you can email them when the next book comes out.
It’s a FREE, direct line to your audience. What’s better than that?
Get the rest of the items on this list sent straight to your inbox!
Some of the links on this blog are affiliate links. At no additional cost to you, I may earn a small commission from some sites if you make a purchase. Please know that I have experience with all of these companies and services. I only recommend them because I know they will be helpful in launching a writing career. By using these affiliate links you’re helping me to keep my blog up and running. Thanks!
