(This post is published as a way to keep my followers/readers on Nairaland updated on my personal projects and ideas. This post does NOT contain any money making advice.)

This past May, I made the decision to walk away from a promising business opportunity to pursue my interests in fiction writing.

Some people said I was stupid. Others said I was an inspiration.

To be honest, I wasn't trying to be either. I just wanted to spend my time pursuing something I've always wanted to do, but never afforded myself the time or permission to do so.

But now that I have, I'm going to commit fully. And the first order of business on my list is to build my author platform.

For some this is just a blog, for others, it's the combination of a blog, newsletter and a heavily engaged social media profile. And for a special few, it's a simple Twitter feed.

An author platform is merely the system one uses to promote their work and connect with their readers, whether it’s traveling the world to speak, hand-selling to friends or building a popular blog, curating a YouTube channel or hosting your own podcast.

From my own experience selling information products, and by studying the habits of bestselling authors, I can say with full certainty that the writers selling the most content are those that are focusing first (and heavily) on planning and building their platforms. The more engagement via the platform, the more likely you are to make money.

That being said, I'm going to begin building my own platform, and if it helps, I'll share a few insights and tips about my process along the way.

I had hoped to have the site up and running earlier today, but it's been difficult to build the kind of site that I want, so I've had to look for other solutions.

What I'm trying to build is an expansive site that would serve as 1.) a blog for my writing, 2.) an encyclopedia for my work to make it easy for readers to find background material on my characters and plots -- kind of like a wikipedia for my stories, and finally 3.) a case study of sorts where I would share some of the lessons, resources and strategies I'm using to grow my author platform and sell more books.

The trick is doing this without building a site that's extremely complicated and difficult to follow.

I could simply build 3 separate sites, but I don't want to do that because I don't want to juggle multiple sites. I want one site from which my readers can easily and readily find my work and updates.

I have a few ideas to experiment with, and once I find a viable solution, I will begin piecing the site together.

When the site is ready to view, I will publish a link below for future reference.

Thanks for reading!

Be blessed!

Ra

Dude your best option is to do something like westeros.com, its a website that serves as a middle man between the people and different sites

lordseb:
Dude your best option is to do something like westeros.com, its a website that serves as a middle man between the people and different sites

I've seen it, and my current plan is to do something similar, though I intend to go well beyond discussing the story itself.

My plan is to consolidate a handful of my current projects into a single endeavor based around the fiction series I'm writing. Something that will allow me to continue independently serve my audiences of readers, info-marketers and online entrepreneurs, and aspiring writers and bloggers, without taking my focus from completing my story.

radragan:


I've seen it, and my current plan is to do something similar, though I intend to go well beyond discussing the story itself.

My plan is to consolidate a handful of my current projects into a single endeavor based around the fiction series I'm writing. Something that will allow me to continue independently serve my audiences of readers, info-marketers and online entrepreneurs, and aspiring writers and bloggers, without taking my focus from completing my story.

thats amazing, your book should be a fantasy book, i'm working on something my self but it's more of science fiction than high fantasy, your book should be epic in scale and build a very huge world to incorporate all the books(i believe it'll be more than one book), read J.R.R Tolkein's Lord Of The Rings or G.R.R Martin's A Song Of Ice And Fire for more inspiration on world building

lordseb:

thats amazing, your book should be a fantasy book, i'm working on something my self but it's more of science fiction than high fantasy, your book should be epic in scale and build a very huge world to incorporate all the books(i believe it'll be more than one book), read J.R.R Tolkein's Lord Of The Rings or G.R.R Martin's A Song Of Ice And Fire for more inspiration on world building

Thanks. The story I'm working on is actually a science fiction/fantasy. It will combine elements from both, a little in the same way the Final Fantasy video game franchise has done in many of its later releases of its games.

I'm currently reading more of the Song of Ice And Fire series for research to learn how to better blend fantasy elements into a novel. If all goes well, I will release the first of a series of short stories in a few weeks to fill in some of the backstory of my series to generate some reader interest. Wish me luck!

Also, do you have a link to your own author site or story concepts? I will publish mine as soon as the site is up.

QUICK UPDATE:

I managed to get most of the site completed yesterday, but things didn't go as planned so I've had to spend much of today working to put the finishing touches on much of the framework.

I'm hoping that by end of today, the site's DNS will have propagated completely throughout the Internet and I can begin sharing the links to the site without visitors being met with various redirect and connection errors.

Also, when it initially launches, much of the site will be inaccessible as I put a few finishing touches on the theme, and some of the custom elements to differentiate each section of the overall site. But I will leave one section unrestricted so that I may communicate with those interested in the continued development of this project.

I will be sure to write a follow-up post to this piece later this evening. Hopefully by then I will have more to share with all of you.

Be blessed!

QUICK UPDATE:

I managed to finish building out the framework of the site. The only thing left to do now is edit the theme to be sure each section blends seamlessly together, giving the site greater sense of unity and brand consistency.

The site link is www.genesiscovenantsaga.com. The site is still under construction, but at least it is finally loading correctly without any loading errors or redirect issues.

In the mean time, I'll be working primarily from the 'Making Genesis' Blog section of the site. This is where I will share updates and insight about not only how I'm growing the site and brand, improving my writing, and developing the overall story, but also how I'm getting traffic, growing my audience and mailing lists, monetizing the site, increasing conversions, and more.

Basically, it will be a living case study focused on building a successful and profitable online presence.

When it's ready, you can view Making Genesis, HERE.

Be blessed!

QUICK UPDATE:

I've completed the look for my homepage. I will add more content as the site grows, but for now, the current look will work just fine.

I have temporarily unblocked the site so people can take a look at the design. You can view the site HERE.

Feel free to take a look, ask questions and leave comments. All feedback is welcome.

You can visit the site at www.GenesisCovenantSaga.com.

Thanks for reading and being a part of this adventure!

Be blessed!

radragan:


Thanks. The story I'm working on is actually a science fiction/fantasy. It will combine elements from both, a little in the same way the Final Fantasy video game franchise has done in many of its later releases of its games.

I'm currently reading more of the Song of Ice And Fire series for research to learn how to better blend fantasy elements into a novel. If all goes well, I will release the first of a series of short stories in a few weeks to fill in some of the backstory of my series to generate some reader interest. Wish me luck!

Also, do you have a link to your own author site or story concepts? I will publish mine as soon as the site is up.

sorry for my late reply, i've been kinda busy myself, from my point of view i'd advise you to release your prelude short stories for free and offer a large array of support from your site and create something like a wiki, you can make me a junior author in the site if you need some help, i don't have my own site ready yet

I'm still working on the details for my release schedule, but there will be a number of pieces offered for free via the site, as well as through online marketplaces such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Smashwords to name a few. I'm also looking into using sites lie WATTPAD, Medium and Tablo to share some of my work. I'm looking to publish the first short story within the next 2 weeks.

As for a wiki, I am building an online encyclopedia of sorts, but the content will be managed in-house. Traditionally, wiki's are a collaborative project, however my site is not. Which makes it more of a story bible than a wiki. In the beginning, I won't add much of any content to the site, but as I release and publish more of the story, I will be sure to update the story bible accordingly.

The goal is to have this site (the design at least) completed by the weekend, because I would love to begin putting the site to use the morning of August 1st. Which gives me a little more than 5 full days to get it done. So far it's looking good. And I pray that I am able to keep up the pace and finish ahead of schedule.

Do you have any idea of when you will begin work on your own site? Perhaps I can be of assistance if you need it.

Be blessed!

radragan:
I'm still working on the details for my release schedule, but there will be a number of pieces offered for free via the site, as well as through online marketplaces such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Smashwords to name a few. I'm also looking into using sites lie WATTPAD, Medium and Tablo to share some of my work. I'm looking to publish the first short story within the next 2 weeks.

As for a wiki, I am building an online encyclopedia of sorts, but the content will be managed in-house. Traditionally, wiki's are a collaborative project, however my site is not. Which makes it more of a story bible than a wiki. In the beginning, I won't add much of any content to the site, but as I release and publish more of the story, I will be sure to update the story bible accordingly.

The goal is to have this site (the design at least) completed by the weekend, because I would love to begin putting the site to use the morning of August 1st. Which gives me a little more than 5 full days to get it done. So far it's looking good. And I pray that I am able to keep up the pace and finish ahead of schedule.

Do you have any idea of when you will begin work on your own site? Perhaps I can be of assistance if you need it.

Be blessed!

for now i'm actually focused on writing the books ( there'll be 15 novels, 2 history books, some Novellas and other stuff), i've drawn the map and written a brief explanation of each chapter, i can't work on a site now until i've completed at least two of the books, but like i said earlier, I'D LOVE TO HELP IN ANYWAY POSSIBLE and gain some experience

Oh, i almost forgot, you can write a short story in the same world as your main book and release it for free on nairaland before releasing the main book so that nairalanders can have a glimpse of your work, just like Tolkien wrote the hobbit before releasing Lord Of The Rings.
I'd also love to know if you're self-publishing or you have a publisher, are you working on softcopy alone or will you also release paperback and how you plan on marketing it

lordseb:

for now i'm actually focused on writing the books ( there'll be 15 novels, 2 history books, some Novellas and other stuff), i've drawn the map and written a brief explanation of each chapter, i can't work on a site now until i've completed at least two of the books, but like i said earlier, I'D LOVE TO HELP IN ANYWAY POSSIBLE and gain some experience

Interesting that you should mention your timeline. I've done the same thing essentially. I've drafted an outline for the series and have a brief synopsis for each volume in the collection. I've already written some of the content, but I'm building the site now because I intend to begin releasing some of the story in the coming weeks, and I want to be sure the site is up and ready to go in the event readers want more background on myself, or the story in general.

Had I not been ready to release anything I wouldn't have spent any time building a website.

Also, I've considered releasing a few things via Nairaland to measure reader interest and responses. My series is mainly targeted towards Western audiences, so I'm a little worried about how it will be received in other markets. I'll share a few things to see how people respond, and if they respond favorably, I'll continue pushing more content through Nairaland and other African based web forums.

As for publishing, I will largely do independent publishing. I've not ruled out conventional publishing, and if I ever secure a lucrative enough publishing contract I'll gladly accept it, but I'm not counting on it. While self-publishing will allow me to distribute my work much quicker, a contract with a publishing house would allow me to expand my reader-base a lot quicker.

I don't have a definitive marketing plan just yet, as there are a few more components I need to vet and test out before committing to anything. I'm giving myself until August 1st to have all the kinks worked out because that's the day I will begin sewing the seeds to promote and market my story.

What about yourself? Are you planning to take the independent or the conventional publishing route?

Be blessed!

radragan:


Interesting that you should mention your timeline. I've done the same thing essentially. I've drafted an outline for the series and have a brief synopsis for each volume in the collection. I've already written some of the content, but I'm building the site now because I intend to begin releasing some of the story in the coming weeks, and I want to be sure the site is up and ready to go in the event readers want more background on myself, or the story in general.

Had I not been ready to release anything I wouldn't have spent any time building a website.

Also, I've considered releasing a few things via Nairaland to measure reader interest and responses. My series is mainly targeted towards Western audiences, so I'm a little worried about how it will be received in other markets. I'll share a few things to see how people respond, and if they respond favorably, I'll continue pushing more content through Nairaland and other African based web forums.

As for publishing, I will largely do independent publishing. I've not ruled out conventional publishing, and if I ever secure a lucrative enough publishing contract I'll gladly accept it, but I'm not counting on it. While self-publishing will allow me to distribute my work much quicker, a contract with a publishing house would allow me to expand my reader-base a lot quicker.

I don't have a definitive marketing plan just yet, as there are a few more components I need to vet and test out before committing to anything. I'm giving myself until August 1st to have all the kinks worked out because that's the day I will begin sewing the seeds to promote and market my story.

What about yourself? Are you planning to take the independent or the conventional publishing route?

Be blessed!

To be sincere i've always had the heart for self-publishing, i don't think Nigerian publishers are interested in high fantasy books, your book may be western in nature but i'd love you to add some african concepts, in ASOIAF GRRM made Essos to look like asia, Westeros to look like Europe and Southoroys to look like Africa( the Americas just don't have a place in fantasy), one thing i know for sure is that Nigerians love fantasy, when i was in high school tons of my friends enjoyed the Harry Potter series and lots more enjoyed Lord Of the Rings, when you talk of A Song of Ice and Fire almost all my classmates( the only exemption was one weird kid) had a copy of the five available books, write yours and get ready to work hard to become the best, there's also one more thing, since your book is fantasy buy Crusader Kings 2 and all its DLC's, buy it by december on steam, there'll be a winter sale, when you get the game you'll learn how to write fantasy AAR's( after action reports) , it'll really help you to become a better writter, but you can visit the paradox forums to read AAR's by other writers, i'm presently writing a multiplayer AAR as house Targaryen( we are using a Game of Thrones mod)

lordseb:

To be sincere i've always had the heart for self-publishing, i don't think Nigerian publishers are interested in high fantasy books, your book may be western in nature but i'd love you to add some african concepts, in ASOIAF GRRM made Essos to look like asia, Westeros to look like Europe and Southoroys to look like Africa( the Americas just don't have a place in fantasy), one thing i know for sure is that Nigerians love fantasy, when i was in high school tons of my friends enjoyed the Harry Potter series and lots more enjoyed Lord Of the Rings, when you talk of A Song of Ice and Fire almost all my classmates( the only exemption was one weird kid) had a copy of the five available books, write yours and get ready to work hard to become the best, there's also one more thing, since your book is fantasy buy Crusader Kings 2 and all its DLC's, buy it by december on steam, there'll be a winter sale, when you get the game you'll learn how to write fantasy AAR's( after action reports) , it'll really help you to become a better writter, but you can visit the paradox forums to read AAR's by other writers, i'm presently writing a multiplayer AAR as house Targaryen( we are using a Game of Thrones mod)

That's not the first time I've heard that Nigerian publishers aren't interested in fantasy books. Makes sense. If it's not a MAJOR seller, then it's not in a publisher's interest to produce the work. A publishing house is a business and wants to make money. So perhaps the fantasy market is not as large in Nigeria as one might expect. I can't say for sure, but I've heard a number of writers, both published and non-published, say that they have a hard time getting their fantasy stories published in Nigeria.

To me, self-publishing just makes more sense considering the timeline I'm working with. I want my story to move along at a certain pace, and I doubt I will be able to land publishing contracts in enough time to carry out the release schedule I have in mind.

I know many people don't care much for self-publishing, but it's an avenue of publishing I believe will only become more prolific over time, and the people who invest the most time and energy now, will be among the top earners later on. Right now, self-publishing is a sizable arena in the West, but given time and the proliferation of resource and technologies in other countries, it will find it's way there too eventually.

Also, as far as including African concepts and ideals into a story, I have something in mind, but I need to do more research. When I'm ready, I plan to publish a significantly large portion of the story online for free. Most of it will be published on my own website, naturally, but the other portion will be published via Nairaland and some of the other forums I'm a part of.

Wish me luck!

Be blessed!

radragan:


That's not the first time I've heard that Nigerian publishers aren't interested in fantasy books. Makes sense. If it's not a MAJOR seller, then it's not in a publisher's interest to produce the work. A publishing house is a business and wants to make money. So perhaps the fantasy market is not as large in Nigeria as one might expect. I can't say for sure, but I've heard a number of writers, both published and non-published, say that they have a hard time getting their fantasy stories published in Nigeria.

To me, self-publishing just makes more sense considering the timeline I'm working with. I want my story to move along at a certain pace, and I doubt I will be able to land publishing contracts in enough time to carry out the release schedule I have in mind.

I know many people don't care much for self-publishing, but it's an avenue of publishing I believe will only become more prolific over time, and the people who invest the most time and energy now, will be among the top earners later on. Right now, self-publishing is a sizable arena in the West, but given time and the proliferation of resource and technologies in other countries, it will find it's way there too eventually.

Also, as far as including African concepts and ideals into a story, I have something in mind, but I need to do more research. When I'm ready, I plan to publish a significantly large portion of the story online for free. Most of it will be published on my own website, naturally, but the other portion will be published via Nairaland and some of the other forums I'm a part of.

Wish me luck!

Be blessed!

Good ideas, is your site now ready? I had some problems with it during my last visit

lordseb:

Good ideas, is your site now ready? I had some problems with it during my last visit

It should be working fine now. It works well from my end but some of my beta testers are still telling me that some of the site fails to load for different reasons.

What problems did you encounter?

radragan:


It should be working fine now. It works well from my end but some of my beta testers are still telling me that some of the site fails to load for different reasons.

What problems did you encounter?

i'll test it again, last time i checked some part opened while some didn't open, i'll try again today, have you uploaded some stuff?

lordseb:

i'll test it again, last time i checked some part opened while some didn't open, i'll try again today, have you uploaded some stuff?

Oh okay. Well do let me know if you find any more errors so I can fix them. And I have begun writing posts. They are scheduled to be published automatically at certain intervals beginning earlier this week. Though by this time next week, there will a decent amount of content for viewers to read. That is when I will begin aggressively pushing my marketing campaigns to draw people to the site.

radragan:


Oh okay. Well do let me know if you find any more errors so I can fix them. And I have begun writing posts. They are scheduled to be published automatically at certain intervals beginning earlier this week. Though by this time next week, there will a decent amount of content for viewers to read. That is when I will begin aggressively pushing my marketing campaigns to draw people to the site.

so far i must commend your effort but what are your viewer stats and it'd be cool if you add a feature to allow your viewers to comment

lordseb:

so far i must commend your effort but what are your viewer stats and it'd be cool if you add a feature to allow your viewers to comment

Thanks for your compliments. The site is about two weeks old at this point, and so far things are going well, but they could be better.

Right now, I'm averaging about 20 or so new page views per day. Not the best number, but it will only increase with time if I maintain the posting schedules I've set on Nairaland, and other forums and websites. My goal is to reach 100 page views per day by the end of August, 200 views per day by end of September, and between 500 views per day by the end of the year.

I have some ideas on how I will get this done, but not an actual plan. Besides, if I did, I would be generating that kind of traffic already.

Also, moving forward, I'm going to focus mostly on my story and my ideas and concepts surrounding it. Before, my plan was to offer more writing tips and advice as I wrote the first novel, but giving it more thought, I think it will be better for me to wait and offer tips until after I've sold a few copies of my first publication.

UPDATE: AUGUST 9, 2016:

Hi friends!

It's been a while since I've posted an update on my progress through this thread, and I promise to make more of an effort to do so in the future.

As you know, when I first started this project, I wanted to test an idea to incorporate 4 of my existing websites into the the one Genesis Covenant website. The idea was to make each of my existing sites, and then blend them into Genesis Covenant as a sub-site or section.

The idea was to concentrate all of my traffic to a single domain and property, rather than trying to maintain numerous sites on various domains.

I ran the experiment for two weeks, and while I can say that it did make managing the sites a lot easier, it also exposed the redundancy of having multiple blogs.

For example, one of my previous blogs, North of Zero, was a blog that focused on personal development, growth and creative thinking. The idea was to merge North of Zero into the Genesis Covenant site, and rather than blog about personal development as it related to business (which is what North of Zero offered before), I would create content more focused on novel writing, creativity and the lessons learned from pursuing a living with my writing.

This way, people could learn more about my experiences with novel writing, and if they wanted to know more about my actual work, they could easily navigate to another part of the Genesis Covenant site; rather than having to navigate and learn a different site altogether.

The idea made sense for a while, but eventually, I began to see that it was more trouble to maintain than it was worth, and was more of a distraction than anything.

Since each sub-site had a specific focus, and in an attempt to avoid publishing duplicate content on the site, I found myself wasting too much time second guessing and juggling which site I wanted certain posts to appear. For example, if I wrote a post about overcoming writer's block, would I post it to North of Zero or Making Genesis (the sub-site that focused on experiences about writing my novel)?

Overall, the idea worked as planned, however, it was too time consuming to maintain; and that time could be better spent creating a better website, rather than forcing myself to jump through hoops in order to preserve a certain appearance and reader experience.

So, for tonight, I will work to move everything to the main Genesis Covenant domain, www.GenesisCovenantSaga.com, and suspend all other sub-sites, with the exception of one. The move won't take long, but I will need to update some of the pages and content so that it will appear consistent.

For now, I will use a variety of redirects to be sure users land on the correct site, but eventually I will go back and update some of my links in threads on Nairaland, and other forums and websites.

Looking back, I don't regret testing the new setup. I wanted to know if I could make it work, and I saw that I could, if I were willing to invest the time to do so. I don't so now it's time to move on.

This will be the last major change I make to the Genesis Covenant site's framework for a long time. I may update or change the colors of the layout from time to time, but that's about it.

When I'm done, I will be sure to post word here and let you know what changes were made, and what to expect moving forward.

Thanks for reading!

Be blessed!

UPDATE: AUGUST 10, 2016

Hi friends!

I just wanted to post a quick update to let you know that the site has been converted, links have been redirected, and everything now rests under the primary, GenesisCovenantSaga.com domain. I removed all other sub-sites except for the Developer Blog. It will remain for the time being. At least until the end of the year when my case study has run its course.

There isn't much of a difference on the surface, other than the removal of my sub-sites -- which have all been condensed to the primary blog. I've also added a knowledge base forum in place of the wiki. The function remains the same -- it will serve as the online encyclopedia for fiction series' universe. The only difference is that I've removed all collaborative features and logins from the site.

Tomorrow (or today rather) I will spend the bulk of my day writing posts and re-purposing old content. By tomorrow, readers can expect to see one new post every 2-3 days.

If you want to browse the new site, visit www.GenesisCovenantSaga.com.

Now I'm off to bed to rest up.

Thanks for reading!

Be blessed!