Build a Library, Build Your Audience

It is popularly quoted, there is no I in team. And many consider team building an essential to creating lasting success.

Let me however provide, two places there is an I. Library and Audience. Two places that exist to fill a need every author, writer, speaker has. 

Two places, also, you need to be if you hope to find success in writing/ publishing. It's not a misspelling, these two places have the eyes you need to improve your chance at success.

That's the point of you putting work into your writing; building an audience. But first you need to build a library.

As a practical matter, the two as physical places have constant eyes, constant traffic.  There are people there searching for material to read, to ingest – so you; your work should be there. Both you personally and you through publications should be in a library, which has an audience. Which also means having something to offer that audience your library.

This means you need to have more publications, plural – more than one. But let's come back to that.

First it must be acknowledged, many authors will struggle to find success. Success meaning, an audience for their work or a showcase for their productions. Many authors will struggle to find a market because they see their works as individual. They create pieces that may never be joined by context. Yet they are already joined by authorship. Your publications are connected by you.

Your voice is the heart of each paper, each article, and each published work you produce. It doesn’t matter if it bears your name. It’s the shared voice, the shared imprint that helps create the market you seek.

Therefore to find success, to gain an audience – you have to build your library.

There has to be a library or catalog of material bearing your imprint. This litany of material will then help the audience discover you as a writer. This will help readers find you, your voice in print. If you don’t produce a library, your book will be like searching for a needle in the proverbial haystack. It doesn’t matter if it’s the best book ever written.

You can be on the shelf and never get checked out if no one knows you’re there. Or worse, you get checked out and read and reshelved for days, weeks, months on end before anyone stumbles upon you again for a look. Because no one knows you’re there.

This is why libraries are essential.

A physical library or digital library, doesn’t exist without material to read. Your library can’t exist if it hasn’t been written. You won’t build an audience if no one knows you’re a writer.

This makes it vitally important to build, create your catalog. Having your own library will help you achieve an audience and eventually grow that audience to bestseller or successful levels.