Truth, goodness, beauty . . .

"Building a tribe is not a matter of a miracle. Instead, it’s about converting tiny groups of people at a time, leading them, connecting them, building an audience. When a self-published author does this, she has a new job. Not the author part, the publisher part. She’s not putting a book into the universe and hoping it will be found. She’s not even putting a book in a journalist’s hands and hoping it will be hyped. No, she is engaging in a years-long journey to build a platform. It might take a decade to become an overnight success, but if you keep it up, if you keep building, the odds keep getting better and better."  from the blog by Seth Godin

This paragraph from Seth Godin's blog today really hits home with me and I hope it does with you. If you have a product to sell, or information to sell, you should be spending time daily building your tribe and your platform. If you understand this, your odds of becoming successful or being able to make a living with your creativity increase exponentially. However, I must add the taking action part. Once you understand it, you have to take the steps of getting out of your comfort zone and reaching out on a regular basis, to build that tribe.

This is a tribe of people that you communicate with and encourage regularly. You may never meet them face to face, but you care about them and they feel like they know you. This can happen through a weekly or monthly newsletter, a blog, speaking engagements, concerts,  gallery showings, a forum or even twitter. Somehow, someway, you need to build a tribe of followers who relate to and draw strength from your message.

When you have a tribe and you release a new CD, painting, book or e-book, you have an audience who is ready to push the 'buy now' button!

I'm wondering . . . what are you doing, or planning to do, to build your tribe?