SPS 011: How To Start Blogging For High Profile Sites with Dorie Clark
Dorie Clark is a marketing strategy consultant, professional speaker, and contributor to the Harvard Business Review. She is the author of Stand Out Networking, Stand Out, Reinventing You, and Entrepreneurial You. Dorie is a former presidential campaign spokeswoman, and an adjunct professor of business administration at Duke University. In this episode, we talk about writing books and writing for high profile sites.
Since her childhood, Dorie always wanted to write a book. In 2009, she decided to pursue her dream and make that happen. She came up with three great ideas and presented those to publishers, but soon discovered without having an established platform she wasn’t going to get a deal. That is when she decided to build a platform through blogging. She began by trying to get into some well-known publications like Forbes, Inc, and Huffington Post.
Dorie used warm leads to and referrals from friends to get an introduction with an editor and the fire publication she began blogging in was the Huffington Post. This led to other opportunities, and we learn how Dorie built a platform and her career to become the author, writer, and contributor that she is today.
You can find Dorie here:
Dorie Clark on Twitter @DorieClark
Show Notes
[01:23] It was Dorie's childhood goal to write a book. In 2009, she wrote three different book proposals.
[02:07] Everything ended up getting turned down because she didn't have a strong enough platform.
[02:32] She needed a platform so she blogged for the Huffington Post, Harvard Review, Forbes and other publications.
[03:05] Following warm leads for getting started blogging.
[03:58] Michael Silver introduced her to an editor at the Huffington Post. A shortcut to being a contributor through warm leads and introductions from people you know.
[04:38] Have a short paragraph bio and links to three or four clips and prepare info about what you want to write and how frequent you would like to write. Put all of this in a packet.
[05:35] She was trying to break in and Huffington Post is the first one she got.
[07:10] After writing for Huffington Post, she began writing for the Harvard Business Review. This lead was a fluke when she met an editor while selling a bike on Craigslist.
[08:45] Have pitches and draft posts ready to go in case an opportunity arises.
[09:19] A Harvard Business Review blog post, turned into a magazine post that turned into three offers for book deals.
[11:54] How following up can help with actually getting an introduction.
[14:10] The book deal came pretty easy, after two years of writing and starting the process. The wind was at her back.
[15:04] Dorie always thought writing a book would be impressive and meaningful.
[16:01] At first, getting the publishing deal felt stressful. She listened to her publicist and ended up
