Hey, my Stage 32 authors!
I humbly seek your wisdom. So, I started a book several years ago that compiled all the advice and insights I had offered to my clients during my 14 years as a massage therapist. Posture, breath work, the mind-body connection, how to collaborate with your therapist, how to find a therapist that's right for you, what to expect with all the different modalities how they can benefit you, etc. When I started writing it, I didn't want to make it just one person's perspective because it would be easy for people to toss it aside who didn't already give credence to the merits of touch therapy. The industry is not well-respected in the U.S., so in order to attract more people who needed the help, I started compiling research on the subject. Now I've got research, my own insights, but I feel like I need to put out parts before making the whole available.
Should I start a blog? Or an online publication? I've been looking at Medium as a place where I could start putting out articles weekly/bi-weekly leading up to the book's release, but I can't confirm that I'll have the rights to the material for sale in a book when it's available with them. I'd love to do a publication that allows other experts in the field to contribute as well, but first thing's first.
Ideally, this outlet will help me meet my writing goals to get the book published without preventing me from publishing it because the rights have been promised with the original online publisher.
ANY AND ALL ADVICE IS WELCOME! THANK YOU!
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a) Start a vlogging channel on Youtube where you speak about your life and your passion in this and slowly about book aspects. Keep it generic and to some form of niche space connected to the book.
b) Along with the Youtube channel, also start a Patreon where you will be giving personal one on one in-depth analysis of the book and your personal sessions with the end-user. and chapter-wise sales based on contribution to your service.
c) On the Patreon page you have the option for book promotion I believe.
Now the reason I'm saying this is, traction of higher visibility is from
-> Text < Image < Audio < Video.
A video got a higher reach so if you have a stronger online presence, you will be able to have better chances to sell your book or a publisher valuing what you want to say as an individual voice. This way you have more strength control on your target audience. Use podcasts too. Keep writing alongside which helps to fine-tune the book.
There are screenwriters, trainer, Jill Chamberlain, or be it John August, they have written books, but they started to create online videos or podcasts, the reason is what I mentioned. above.
Boost of luck.
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yay! Finally something I think I can help with :)
You have so many avenues available. I agree YouTube is a great option for longer-form content. I will say the algorithm can be tough. TikTok would be a great platform, especially as a busy professional. I gained almost as many followers in three weeks on TikTok as it took me over three YEARS on Youtube, and I wasn't even trying.
Alternatively, if you are still wanting to have your work published into a book, I know of a publisher that has similar publications. I found them on NetGalley (a site to find arc readers to review your book). They have an entire subsection of their publishing specific to body, mind, and spririt. They also have an open submission policy (I did a little digging for you).
You can also just start a blog and promote it heavily on Pinterest.
Lastly, you can check out Kindle Vella. I think this is more for fiction, and it is new. What I know so far is you release your book in chapters once a week. They may have a non-fiction option as well.
I hope this helps give you some ideas!
Quatro Publishing Submission Guidelines: https://www.quartoknows.com/Corporate/Submission-Guidelines/
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I did more digging! Kindle Vella has a non-fiction category! I am still learning a lot about the platform. What I know is you have to release your work one chapter at a time. The minimum is 600 words and the maximum is 5K.
Also, it has to be original work that has never been published before. So if you want to go with Kindle Vella, you cannot use a blog or a published book.
I am currently working on a dark romance novel. The plan is to release it first on KV then after a short run, pull it, reformat, and either query literary agents or self publish. The hope is that it will have had enough viewers on KV to attract an agent when querying the book.
Something like that might work for you too. That sounds very similar to what you are looking for :)
https://www.amazon.com/kindle-vella/category/21364103011
I see they make movies outta twitter threads nowadays...
You all are AMAZING! Thank you so much for this information! Just to confirm, though - no one here has published articles on Medium before, then?
Rohit Kumar - that is a fantastic suggestion, thank you! I, too, thought to do YouTube, but the turnaround time is slow. I may start with TikToks and YouTube live for a podcast, though. That way all of the above can live on YouTube. Great insight, though - I definitely think that the visual medium is more appealing, and it actually helps to convey the base information better, too (being a touch modality).
Amara Franklin - WOW. Three weeks?! That's insane! I definitely think TikTok is a great resource, and I can easily link it with what I've built on IG. And thank you for all that research, that was very generous of you!
@Meg - When you're right, you're right. I think I just didn't want the responsibility of housing the blog, because then it begs the question - is the website ME or a company? If it's me, then will everyone only ever think of me because of this ONE project. If it's the company, then it spirals into do I make it an NPO, LLC, etc. It just makes my head spin. LOL What are your thoughts?
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Karen "Kay" Ross MEOW Pleasure for liking my inputs. Being once and still an entrepreneur, an engineer turned Filmmaker I can share that info.
There are few pointers, I would like to add, be it Tiktuk or YouTube or anything, be it video or text or audio or even website, how powerful, impactful, and presentable it is to make your subject reach places is all it takes. That's what I have learned.
Some people have like 1M subscribers on YT or TT or anywhere, but their quality of content would be so mediocre, uninteresting that I wonder what I'm getting from this? And sometimes there are people who are giving quite amazing content/info, but hardly very less truly appreciate that or follow them.
So just don't jump in creating tiktok or YT Videos or books or anything without having some kind of format, a form surrounded by powerful impactful content which does "KABOOM!" on internet. That's the whole trick and each of these platforms and internet spaces got their own age group target audience, so you ahve to know which target audience are you really aiming at which brings "Paying" customers more. There are those who work on AD revenue of how large number of people watching their too trivial tiktok videos, and there are those working on genuine videos on youtube or even on their simple website to draw specific small group of rich paying customers.
So know,
1. Who is your target audience who genuinely willing to pay you or follow you by large numbers instantly/growth hacking techniques helps.
2. Which content would be good enough to create impact but also I can play with that by giving just a slice of it's taste and make the audience crave for it more
3. What presentable "form" it can be which can be unique, and so impactful that, one video or post I do, it should go VIRAL.
Regarding medium.com I have few words who do that on entrepreneurship based article. But like I said platforms comes next. It's what story and its form we put it out there..No matter even if we get opportunity to write for Ogilvy it will not stand a chance to be valued until what's the strength of content or who is posting it..
That's the whole social media strategy. Simple as that. NOW PAY ME mmmmm $500 for giving a 2 year's worth of social media marketing info ... lol(Just kidding)
BEAST and BOOST OF LUCK!
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You should create videos about the subject and upload them to YouTube. When it comes to sharing unpublished content from my books, I prefer not to do so till it is published. People will sometimes grab your stuff and claim it as their own.
You can, however, use social media to discuss subjects addressed in your book. Perhaps you should become an advocate.
All kinds of digital platforms gig economy takes more from content creators then give back equally enough to claim a win win situation.. It's mostly monopoly business creating a psychological state of validation mindset. Its actually at times makes end users delusional as well as us as content creators .
So we have to be sure not to wrap ourselves too much to that emotional trap of those filter bubbles and just make use of it in a way just like a funnel in sales. Have like a balance for usage of content platform and not make it as part of life . Unfortunately being engineer myself I wont shy away from saying most modern day technological flowery apps of social network approaches does more damage to our society than it claims it doesn't. . Soon to join will be the pyramid ponzi schemes of bitcoins, NFTs, so on..
I would need to know more about your content before giving any advice--but I do understand the need for accountability and building a platform, I'm just not always sold on a blog being the best use of time and energy these days UNLESS there is already a platform built for the blog to have instant success like on Stage32. My advice is to weigh your effort of output and the platform payoff. =)