Summary: <br> Listener Question<br> I’m an emerging author. I have almost completed a novel and have written 20+ short stories, but I have not submitted them for publication. I understand it is important to have an author’s platform–a website/blog. My question, if you are as yet unpublished, what kinds of things should you upload to your website–a sample chapter from the book, sample short stories, all your short stories to show your range of style?<br> Transcript:<br> <br> Jim: I’m James L Rubart but everybody calls me Jim<br> Thomas: I’m Thomas Umstattd Jr.<br> Jim: And this is the show for novelists who want to become bestselling authors but aren’t necessarily fond of marketing. And in this episode, Thomas, we’re going to talk about how to start building your platform before your first book comes out. And I’m excited to get into this because I think you and I might disagree on a few points but I’ve got to ask you about your recent trip. You and Margaret went out of the country recently, didn’t you?<br> <br> Thomas: That’s right. So my book on dating and relationships has landed me on a documentary. So the documentary crew had me out to Canada to talk about my book and to talk about dating and relationships. We haven’t talked about documentary marketing and getting on those, so it will be interesting to see once the documentary comes out if it has an impact and what kind of impact it has on book sales. So stay tuned, we’ll let you know.<br> Jim: Well that’s going to be good! So they were actually filming you, you were part of this documentary, they were interviewing you and talking to you?<br> Thomas: That’s right. Somebody else who had written a very popular book on the topic is changing his views a little bit, and he’s making a documentary about that evolution. So I actually disagree with his original book, and so this was a discussion between us. It will be very interesting to see how it works into the documentary at the end. Hopefully I won’t come across as The Villain, so that’s always a risk when you’re in a documentary, in that it’s not a favorable documentary on a topic.<br> Jim: That’s true, you don’t know how it’s going to be edited right? So I know that things change in documentary and filming schedules and all this, but is there a tentative release date for when this is going to come out?<br> Thomas: Yeah, 2018. Sometime…<br> Jim: Sometime in 2018, alright. Well, we’ll keep everyone posted.<br> Thomas: So this topic about marketing for unpublished authors actually comes from a listener question. Carol Magai asks,<br> Jim: “I’m an emerging author. I’ve almost completed a novel and I’ve written 20 or more short stories but I haven’t submitted them for publication at this point in time. I understand it’s important to have an author’s platform, a website, a blog, some kind of exposure. So my question is, if you aren’t yet published, what kinds of things should you upload to your website? Should you upload a sample chapter from the book, sample short stories, all your short stories to show your range? What should I put on that website while I’m submitting and hopefully getting a contract for that first novel?” <br> Thomas: All right. So I will say , and Jim you may disagree with this, but I want to first talk about the things not to do, some very common mistakes that I see authors make. And one is spending lots of time on social media thinking that it is platform-building. And I just don’t see this work. I see a lot of authors spending a lot of time on social media that doesn’t end up helping them sell books once their book is ready to go. And that time is better spent doing something else, potentially just working on your craft and writing. Jim, what do you think?<br> Jim: Well, I think yes and no. Let me give you a specific example of a friend of mine, and I haven’t asked her permission so I’m not going to say her name,
