In the last few weeks, video blogger Gary Vaynerchuk received a 10 book deal with publisher Harper Collins. Gary is not much of a reader and he was not even looking for a book contract, so how did he achieve what so many authors fail to? The simple answer is that he has a platform. He has an audience and a way to reach them which guarantees him exposure and book sales.

Here are 7 ways you can build your own platform as an author.

1. Start your own blog and write about your book, your niche area or just your writing. You can sell your books from here too, but most importantly, you have a place to connect to readers. You can express yourself and be heard. You can have a free blog in very little time with Blogger or Wordpress so it doesn’t need to be technically difficult.

2. Get involved in social networking. It may be overwhelming but you need to network in order to make contact with people. Choose one or two sites and become active on them. It could be mySpace, Facebook, GoodReads or Twitter. It doesn’t matter too much as long as you network, connect with people and make new contacts.

3. Write and submit articles. A great way to get your name and your book out there is by writing articles and submitting them to sites like EzineArticles.com. These are syndicated to sites that need content with your bio so can drive traffic back to your blog or your website.

4. Make videos for YouTube. Videos are not hard anymore. You just need a webcam or a Flipcam or a cheap camcorder. Talk about your book or your topic and load it onto YouTube as a basic starter. If you love it, you can become a video blogger!

5. Do a podcast or an audio download. People love to hear a voice as well as read the words. You can get a small mp3 recorder for under $100 or use a microphone plugged into your computer. You can do entire works of fiction by podcast like author J.C. Hutchins, or you can do interviews with other authors, or talk about your work.

6. Send out a press release. You don’t need to have a publicist in order to send out a press release. You just need to know the format, have a newsworthy topic and send it to a specific person, then follow up. Remember that the media are always looking for stories. Choose a holiday or a slow time for news and you could be onto a winner!

7. Speak about your book. Build your audience more locally through speaking about your book. Many organisations are looking for people to speak at breakfasts, conventions, book groups, libraries and other places. Offer great content in your speeches and people will want your book. Video your appearances and put them on YouTube for even more exposure!

If this all seems too much, just start with one thing and you will find that over time it builds up and you too will have a platform.

Bio: Joanna Penn is an author, speaker and consultant. Joanna’s blog The Creative Penn offers information for authors on writing, self-publishing, print-on-demand, internet sales and promotion…for your book. She is also the the author of “From Book to Market”, available in ebook format and coming soon on Amazon.com.

Let’s learn together…

If you’re thinking of going after national TV exposure to promote your speaking or your book, you might consider creating your own local TV show starring — you.

The reason to do this is that few national TV shows want to take a risk on an unknown entity. They want to see how you appear on camera. In order to do this, you need to create a (demo) reel showing your expertise in front of the camera.

How do you do this? You can try to get yourself booked on your local TV news. If they say yes, great. But then what? You need more than that for your reel. One choice might be to try to get exposure on local TV in other markets. This is a great approach if your budget allows for it.

But if time and travel expenses are an issue, there is a free or very inexpensive alternative.

In many communities, the cable TV providers must offer what is frequently called local access or public access. This means they have their own local production studios that community members can use to produce shows, which are broadcast on a local cable channel.

In order to produce a show, the cable company will usually require that you take their course on television production, usually offered for free or at a nominal charge.

Most people find these courses a lot of fun. When you’re done, you can be a TV producer. Not every graduate of the course wants to produce their own show, which takes a lot of work, but most are willing to volunteer on other people’s shows, operating cameras and such. That’s how most local access shows are produced.

The key to success is to make your shows informative and entertaining. And non-commercial. Most cable companies will not allow you to make this a profit-seeking venture.

Producing your own show and appearing in front of the camera can prepare you to appear on national TV shows in two ways.

First, you get to practice in front of the camera. When you watch your show, it gives you valuable feedback on how you come across. You have the opportunity to adjust your style before trying to become a guest on other, larger shows.

Second, you have footage to send to larger TV shows so they can see you in action. You can use excerpts from your show to create your reel. Having a reel will help you get on national TV talk and news broadcasts.

And getting on national TV will help you get bigger and better paying speaking gigs and help you sell more of your books.

Adapted from the book, You Can Be Famous! Insider Secrets to Getting Free Publicity.

Bio: Danek S. Kaus is a veteran journalist and publicist. He is the author of the new book, You Can Be Famous! Insider Secrets to Getting Free Publicity. Dan offers free initial phone consultations. Write him at dan@yourpowerpublicity.com .

Let’s take a look at the powerful combination of article marketing and teleseminars, and the time your average prospect spends on each.

Web page = 30 seconds

When somebody comes to your website, that’s about all you have to get them involved in some way, and I’m being very, very generous when I say 30 seconds. Some studies say only 7 seconds.

Think about all the work that goes into a website, and you’re doing all that work for 30 seconds. That’s a lot of work for 30 seconds.

Article = 5 minutes

One of the reasons why article marketing is so powerful is when someone reads an article, you have them for 3-5 minutes. Just for round numbers and to make the math easy in my head, we’ll say 5 minutes.

You’ve got 5 minutes where they’re reading your approach to a problem, a little bit of your personality, and your approach to solving problems. The know, like, and trust factor begins.

With an article and 5 minutes, you have 10 times the amount of time that you typically have on a website. Now can you find time to write 300 words in 30 minutes? You get 10 times the amount in an article as you do on a web page.

Teleseminar = 60 minutes

If you do a 60-minute teleseminar that’s 12 times the amount of time of an article. It’s 120 times the amount of time that you get on a website.

It’s that much more time where a prospect is focused on what you’re teaching for 60 minutes.

I guess the question is, why not use all of these? Why not have a website? Why not have articles on EzineArticles.com and other article directories, and why not have teleseminars and use all of these? It’s not either/or or just a few – use them all!

If you’ve had their attention for 5 minutes, why not give them a link to a recording of a teleseminar you’ve done. You’ve had them for 5 minutes, and now you’re going to get them for 60 more.

So it goes from article, to resource box, to an audio. Why not offer that in the resource box, a recorded teleseminar, and offer the link to it in the resource box?

For example, you resource box might say, “Claim your Free Instant Access right now to a 30 minute teleseminar on the Benefits of the “Article-a-Day” Strategy when you visit http://www…..

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If you found this info useful I invite you to click on Jeff’s Article Marketing TeleSeminar Club of which I, Terry, am a member too.

Enjoy the Day!

First Question You Should Ask Yourself…

How are you going to repurpose the teleseminar? Let us explain.

E-learning with teleseminars (also known as TeleWecasts) gives you audio content that you can repurpose into many other information products, such as spectacular presentations, e-books, special reports, and videos. Let us explain…

Plan your teleseminar with the goal of repurposing it into different forms of e-learning later. If you ask yourself how you’ll repurpose it, you’ll come up with answers that may be different than what your original content included, so that’s where you want to start.

If you want 12 blog posts, then you may have 12 strategies instead of 10. If you want four articles then you may have four major techniques, because you can turn each one into its own article. It’s certainly easy to expand on each one to make it a standalone article, because you’ll be using examples and more details.

What we want you to do is start thinking of how you’re going to repurpose before you start speaking in a teleseminar, before the spoken word is utilized. By doing so you begin with the end in mind asking, “What am I going to repurpose this teleseminar into?”

That’s the important question that will make sure you cover content in your call to give you the text, after you have it transcribed, to turn into all those other forms of e-learning.

Information marketing is simply getting your information out there in as many forms as possible so more people can find you and learn from you. Teleseminars are the easiest place to start, so plan them well in advance so you have the content you need to turn it into other e-learning products.

About Pat and Lorna Shanks

We are “SPECTACULARIZERS” of great audio content. They teach entrepreneurs, independent professionals and small business owners how to attract more clients and make more money using Spectacular Presentations and Robotic Internet Marketing. For more “Spectacularizer Tips”, go to www.PatAndLorna.com or follow us on Twitter.