We’ve had a blast at the Carrot Ranch Flash Fiction Rodeo, and great guffaws from Little and Laugh thanks to the Real Geoff Le Pard and all who entered his contest. And we’ve had fun with Spammer in Residence, Nanjo Castille. He seems to be having fun, too.

We like humor in the literary arts. We like to share laughs among friends. But let’s have a serious talk about spam for a moment.

According to Askimet, spam is “the underbelly of the web.” By October 30, 2017, Askimet caught its 400 billionth spam comment. If you pay for your Word Press website, you receive this filter. Who knows, maybe the Real Nanjo Castille was number 400,000,000,000.

What is this underbelly, exactly? My own definition is that it’s poor marketing. Spam manipulates the sales technique “the more you ask, the more you sell.” I still shudder at those cold-call nights after I left magazine publishing and sold insurance as an agent. I hated it. I hated picking up the phone, interrupting people’s lives with a sales pitch.

Spam is the same idea based on mass numbers producing more sales, or click-thrus. You see, advertisers pay money to get their ads seen. Nanjo is not really selling purses, or perfume, or dongles, or forklifts.  A spammer wants to lure you to a bogus website. Click. You just became a number. Those numbers add up and shady marketers charge advertisers by those clicks.

Spam can be a nuisance. It can spread disinformation (think of those fake news chain emails telling you to forward to five more people or your guardian angel loses her wings). It can lead to phishing. Spam can include malicious downloads. You can learn more and how to play it safe on the web at Tech Journey.

Authors and bloggers inadvertently become spammers, too. This goes back to the poor marketing practices of cold-calling and interrupting strangers with a sales pitch. It doesn’t work. It’s disingenuous. It robs your time and energy and the recipient’s time and energy (that’s why spam sucks — it’s a thief of time).

However, Nanjo reminds us that even spammers are human (not bots). Writers selling books are human, too. Spammers do what they do, cold-callers do what they do, and book sellers do what they do, all to earn a living. Let’s be frank about that. It can be incredibly difficult these days to earn a living in sales. It’s even more difficult to earn a living as a writer.

Yet, in order to sell, you still have to ask. And it’s hard. Think about this for a moment — what if spamming is easy because we dehumanize ourselves to turn into robot mode buy-my-book-buy-my-book, and it’s not us making the ask, its bot-self making the ask. I know when I made those cold calls, the only way I got through those nights was by turning off internally.

Therefore, good marketing is uncomfortable. It’s only human to feel vulnerable when pitching your idea, book or product to another. As much as you might prefer a technique that allows you to turn off, don’t. You need to engage. You need to understand that rejection isn’t personal, it’s simply that you didn’t reach your right target. Adjust. Aim better. Stay human.

Two attributes of good marketing are work ethic and authenticity. Work ethic means you take the time to build a platform and authenticity means you take the time to match up your product to those who want it.

It’s a simple answer but complex to set up and execute. It takes thought, strategy, pushing through resistance, maintaining confidence when you have doubt, building relationships, understanding channels of distribution, defining and finding your target audience, innovating, gathering feedback, promoting, and understanding what platform and marketing are.

Not so simple, after all. Thus spamming is easier if you can numb yourself to doing it. Instead, let’s be vulnerable, let’s learn and grow and build. As writers. As marketers. Let’s respect each other’s path, our time, and our shared humanity. Let’s laugh. Not at anyone, but in that grand mystical way when humor breaks down barriers and lightens our burdens and illuminates our human foibles.

And above all, let’s reach out to one another through the empowerment of creating literary art.

Essay by Charli Mills, Lead Buckaroo at Carrot Ranch and has developed the idea that a writer’s platform is built on branding, credibility, community and target audience.

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Either way, I made a mistake. Either I’ve insulted an individual I do not know, or I could have risked exposing my community to something inauthentic. It’s never easy to be in an a position of public skepticism, but I went with my intuition because I noticed clues of authenticity, or rather, a lack of them.

When it comes to building a writer’s platform, authenticity is key.

As an author, you are your own brand. Some writers choose a pen name and develop a persona around it. This is fine, as long as you remain authentic to that persona. Others use their genre or the topics they like to write to build a brand. Take for instance, my buckaroo brand. At its core is a culture I was born to but left to pursue a career in writing, not riding. I can have fun with my roots and they are authentic. Yet, I also know writers who never sat in a saddle, but pen brilliant historic westerns and wear Stetsons. They could build a buckaroo brand, too. It has to mean something to you, so it can become meaningful to others.

Credibility has many touch points in your writing. The most credible touch point is easily observed by readers — can you write? You won’t make a credible writer if your sentences have nothing to convey. Craft is something every writer has to work on, even the masters. Yet, if you have nothing to say and write in circles, you might be committing a fraud, such as the student in school who didn’t read the book but is trying to give convoluted answers to mask the fact. Topic credibility is important too, and we’ve had discussions before about how authentic our characters should be in their settings or professions or circumstances.

Community trust is paramount to any platform that builds community. Community might be other writers you interact with or they might be part of a platform, such as those who gather at Carrot Ranch. Just like your work community or neighborhood, it’s important to take time to get to know one another and create a space space that honors diversity, exploration and growth. Different communities could be build around shared interests, activities or goals. Whatever the driver, the community trust is also governed by authenticity.

A writer’s target audience is different from the community (although some readers may decide to interact at the community level). Readers want to know their authors are real people (or personas) and observing community interaction, knowing the author’s brand and credibility are all important factors. The writer also needs to understand who is most likely to read, and create a platform that attracts or seeks a target audience. For example, if an author builds a brand around cute kittens but wants to publish political thrillers, chances are the platform won’t support the product. That’s why readers need to be considered even if they are not yet part of the mix.

I thought about the authenticity of these platform components as I prepared to post a submitted article. Someone responded to my ranch email, offering to write an article like the brilliant Writing is Water essay by Kerry E. B. Black. It was a curiosity when the actual article arrived and was not about Raw Literature but was an interesting piece on the importance of niche. I skimmed it quickly to see it was better suited as a platform guest post. I didn’t give it a deep read, something I should have done before saying. “Yep!”

I couldn’t say what, but the whole thing seemed off kilter.

As I prepared to set up the piece, and link to the author’s bio, I went over to his website to discover it wasn’t a blog but a writing business. It was a professional looking site with high quality graphics and a call center. Whoa. Wait. A call center? I began to read through it carefully. It was fairly well written, marketing to students and professionals to write essays and articles, and the first sentence I tripped over was the one proclaiming the writers were native English speakers except it was constructed in a way that was clearly not written by a native English writer. Don’t proclaim to be one thing and expose yourself as the opposite.

If you are an expert, great! But as The Hub says, if not, don’t dress up in a suit and tie and get on YouTube and make a donkey of yourself. If you are not a writer don’t be selling writing services. And if you are a student or a professional, don’t be paying a service to write your school essays or reports you are paid to write. Inauthentic! And it doesn’t sit well with me that I almost posted an article to my community by someone who abuses authenticity to profit. I could be wrong, but when I did a deeper read, the article was about a great topic but actually said nothing compelling and had several questionable errors from a writing service expert.

So! Here I am, guesting today on my own blog instead of posing the article intended. My apologies if I’ve offended the submitter who will remain anonymous (and I doubt the person is known to anyone here). And not to scare off any future guest posters, but hey — submit something authentic! That means, be you, write in your own voice and select a topic that is meaningful to share. We post wide ranges of writing and topics, so unless you are scamming the system, submit away!

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Platform is a series that discusses the balance between craft and creation. It’s a writer’s sum total of visibility comprised of branding, community, credibility and target audience. An author markets product (books, blog, podcasts, workshops) from a platform. This series offers tips from experienced authors, publishers and marketers specific to all writers interested in building a platform and selling books and related products. If you have an article to share with the community of writers at Carrot Ranch, pitch to Charli Mills, Lead Buckaroo, at wordsforpeople@gmail.com.

Carrot Ranch is entering new territory. And it’s a beautiful view!

First of all, prompts shift to Thursday (Friday for those opposite the earth clock from Mars, Utah). The November 17 prompt will be an extended one to stretch across the Thanksgiving holiday in the states. Mostly, because my daughter surprised me with getting time off from work and flying to Las Vegas from Montana. This is a woman who rarely takes time off unless it’s to raft a crazy river, go bow hunting or sailing Flathead Lake. I’m beyond thrilled!

As I informed all the ranchers who gather here, November is my NaNoRanCho planning and reflecting period. The shift to a Thursday flash fiction challenge is part of that. The deadline will continue to be the following Tuesday, which gives me a day for compiling. You might not realize it, but I give thought to the order. Sometimes I don’t see patterns and I follow a general “as submitted” order. Most times, though, interesting patterns emerge that I feel make a stronger statement in a certain order. Or sometimes I break up seriousness with unexpected humor (or the other way around). I immensely enjoy the finished collective product and want to have that extra time to shape it. The compilation will post on Wednesdays.

When the deadline day arrives for the previous flash fiction challenge, Carrot Ranch is going to use Tuesdays to be a regular profile or guest post. This space is to reflect upon the importance of literature from one writer’s perspective. A profile is a post in which I interview a writer and write the post. A guest post is one a writer writes. The theme is like a prompt: what value does literature have within the constraint of a story you want to tell (or I want to tell if I interview you). With this post-election reality, I see more than ever how important literature is to crafting empathy for other; telling the story from multiple or opposing perspectives; developing critical thinking; experiencing literary creativity; starting a dialog. I’m sure you can add to that list, and all interested in submitting or interviewing can take flexibility to include your own writing projects or books.

Coming in 2017, Mondays are for marketing tips. I’m partnering with another social media group to post brief tips to encourage the group’s writers to submit their work or build their platform. Some of you might know I have a specific idea of what a writer’s platform is: branding, community, credibility, target audience. This is based om my experience in marketing and what I’ve learned about the writing industry. I do not believe there is one way to build a platform. However, I do believe writers need to make informed decisions. My goal is to create an hub of information at Carrot Ranch to empower writers to feel confident in their marketing and platform building tactics. I will work with industry experts to post articles and I’ll introduce each post to explain which of the four components the guest is addressing. This is appropriate space for any blog tours for new books, if the author talks about his or her own platform or marketing strategies.

December will continue development of Carrot Ranch as a non-profit and our first anthology. The current Rough Writers are those who have prior material that we are including in the anthology along with exciting new works from several of our writers. Anthologies will continue to build upon the flash fiction we develop here, but they are more developed and reflective than a simple collection of what we write each week. We can grow this in many ways because it is a group effort. Sarah Brentyn has done an amazing job of developing this first one. As a non-profit, Carrot Ranch will also seek anyone committed to serve as a board director. More on that later, but be thinking about it if you are interested in being a part of a grass-roots organization that supports literary writers through flash fiction and marketing support.

Currently, I’m developing questions for my consultant who is helping me create a survey that shows what kind of platform builder an individual writer is. You can help me by asking me questions you have in regards to one of the four categories: branding, community, credibility or target audience (ask in the comments). This survey will be free for all writers and the intent is to generate a graph that shows each person his or her strengths or gaps in platform building. An e-book companion (for purchase) will then break down each component and show how a writer can either maximize strengths or bridge gaps. You’ll never be confused by a marketing post or book again once you learn to identify which component it relates to. Instead of reading books that seem at odds or discourage you as a writer, you can decide if it’s the right message or strategy for you.

So that’s my NaNoRanCho report thus far. I hope you are interested in taking part in the guest post (or interview) opportunities. I will also have a schedule for times (like this next week) where I would welcome a challenge host. You’ll get to create the prompt, write the challenge post, read and engage with participants, and compile the responses. If you are excited to be a part of the Carrot Ranch community as a rancher, email me at wordsforpeople@gmail.com. Rough Writers are selected from regular participants for each anthology and we are still at book one. Hang with us and you might be a Rough Writer in the future. You are always a rancher her at the ranch when you read, write or dialog and that’s why we say, Rough Writers & Friends. Thank you for being here!

PHOTO NOTE: This is the backside of West Temple at Zion National Park. On the other side of that sandstone feature, which is almost 8,000 feet in elevation, is Zion Canyon. It is surreal to have access to the backside of a place that attracts over 10,000 people a day in the height of season. It’s a sketchy road that climbs three layers of mesas. This flat reveals an ancient history. Stay tuned for the next flash fiction challenge.