Platforms! Niches! Genres! Oh My! by Author Holly Michael

After years of working in diverse areas as a nonfiction writer—journalist, ghostwriter, newspaper features writer, editor—I dove into fiction writing without a platform. Gasp! Without a platform! 

I just thought I could write a book. Wrong! The books on how to write books spoke of platforms, niches, genres. 

As a hybrid—Fiction and Nonfiction—author, I didn’t have a niche. And worse, Crooked Lines didn’t fit into any genre. I had the general market in mind, but after publishing Crooked Lines, I’ve had reviewers on Amazon call it: Literary Fiction, Christian Fiction, Romance, and even “a book that can’t be assigned to any genre.” 

So….was I doomed? 

Hope not! 

Backing up….While writing Crooked Lines, I decided to at least try to get a platform going by starting a blog. But what kind of a blog? Everyone was doing writing blogs. Without a defined genre, I wasn’t sure what to do.  

I ended up naming my blog Holly Michael’s Writing Straight @ www.writingstraight.com Writing Straight is from the maxim: God Writes Straight with Crooked lines. Crooked Lines, of course, being the title of my first novel. Through life’s crooked lines and learning curves, people are the dots that connect. I wanted to create a website to connect people and to inspire and share about life and writing. 

Sometimes I blog about family, sometimes faith, sometimes my books, sometimes travel, and sometimes football. Yes, football. So, I have a blog, but it’s not really a platform. BUT…..maybe it is. See, here’s how I tied it all together (at least in my mind)… 

Faith, Family, Travel, Football: I have a traditionally published devotional coming out in 2015 co-authored with my son, an NFL player who is also a type 1 diabetic. My fiction is spiritually themed. My husband is an Anglican Bishop. We travel a lot and the locations we travel to become settings in my books. 

So, my point in this article is that you just need to write what you want. I understand the plusses of having a platform, niche, and genre, but if you don’t, it’s okay. The writing police won’t arrest you. First, write what you love and write it well. If you find you can write to a niche and genre, all the better. Your platform is ready made. Get your blog going, and blog away. But if you’re like me, an ADD hybrid author who’s all over the place, it’ll all work out fine. So far, it’s working for me.

I’m a kaleidoscope, twisted and turned by the hand of God through a beautiful life of writing, traveling, and other incredible opportunities. I’m the wife of Rt. Rev. Leo Michael, an Anglican Bishop in the Holy Catholic Church-Anglican Rite. Mom to three great kids: Sweet Betsy and my two #81’s: Jake Byrne (San Diego Chargers) and Nick Byrne (Ragin Cajuns). I’ve been blessed to be able to travel extensively across the United States and internationally to India, England, Scotland, and Canada.


Make sure to stop by Friday for a chance to win a free copy of Holly's novel Crooked Lines!

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What I've Learnt Launching a Book by Author Jessica Dotta

When I first began writing, I found an article online that I've never forgotten. 

In it, the writer said something like: So you want to be a writer? Take two aspirin, lie down and hope the urge goes away! The gist was that it would be much, much easier to quit than to attempt to break through the publishing wall. At the time, I remember laughing. Now I'm not so sure he was joking. He really might have meant to take the aspirin. At the time, I remember laughing. Now I'm not so sure he was joking. He really might have meant to take the aspirin. 

Breaking through the publishing wall does seem like an impossible task, and if you're among those seeking publication, I want to offer encouragement. Believe it or not, right now you're in the honeymoon phase—and I don't want you to miss it! 

I recall my impatience now with a chuckle. I was so ready to be sold and published! Thank goodness I wasn't then! And not because my book wasn't ready. 

I had no thoughts of what still needed to be accomplished in my life. Writers know our job is to speak truth and to be willing to expose all. Yet there were still areas of my life chaining me from speaking the truth, though I didn't know it, then. Furthermore, I had no thoughts of the work that went into such a career choice. I wasn't thinking of social media, html coding, networking, creating the necessary photos, website design, mail blasts and driving for hours in a car for a half-hour event. 

At that point, I was in love with words and story. I spent hours delighting in finding the exact word choices to express an emotion or in figuring out the perfect action beat. I relished working with my fellow writers in critique groups, learning new concepts with them. 

I always thought the honeymoon started the moment a book contract is offered! But that's a skewed view. If we're comparing publishing to marriage, know that you're married as soon as you've made the commitment. 

If you're writing, you're a writer. 

How many couples on their honeymoon think about the folks back home who have been married several years with kids and jobs—and feel discontented that they're relaxing on the beach and having fun, while the others are so much further along? 

Not too many, I imagine. 

Take time and savor where you are. Make friends, critique work, grow in the craft! The next step will unfold in due season. 

Born in the wrong century–except for the fact that she really likes epidurals and washing machines–Jessica Dotta writes British Historicals with the humor like an Austen, yet the drama of a Bronte.

She resides lives in the greater Nashville area—where she imagines her small Southern town into the foggy streets of 19th century London. She oversees her daughter to school, which they pretend is an English boarding school, and then she goes home to write and work on PR. Jessica has tried to cast her dachshund as their butler–but the dog insists it’s a Time Lord and their home a Tardis. Miss Marple, her cat, says its no mystery to her as to why the dog won’t cooperate. When asked about it, Jessica sighs and says that you can’t win them all, and at least her dog has picked something British to emulate.

BOOK BLURB:

The year is 1838, and seventeen-year-old Julia Elliston’s position has never been more fragile. Orphaned and unmarried in a time when women are legal property of their fathers, husbands, and guardians, she finds herself at the mercy of an anonymous guardian who plans to establish her as a servant in far-off Scotland.

With two months to devise a better plan, Julia’s first choice to marry her childhood sweetheart is denied. But when a titled dowager offers to introduce Julia into society, a realm of possibilities opens. However, treachery and deception are as much a part of Victorian society as titles and decorum, and Julia quickly discovers her present is deeply entangled with her mother’s mysterious past. Before she knows what’s happening, Julia finds herself a pawn in a deadly game between two of the country’s most powerful men. With no laws to protect her, she must unravel the secrets on her own. But sometimes truth is elusive and knowledge is deadly.

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