Interesting article here by Gregory A. Kompes titled Writerpreneur: Electronic Self-Publishing. In his article, Mr. Kompes talks about using blogs, articles, ebooks, audio and video to build an electonic footprint on the web to improve your author platform.

I’d like to add the importance of building a strategic plan to promote your book. Authors have hundreds of tactics they can use to promote themselves, but without a clear plan in place, many authors simply dabble in these tactics and do not pursue them vigorously. If you are a blogger, then you understand the importance of blogging regularly and interacting with other blogs. This activitiy may take several hours a week. If you use Facebook, you’ll be spending several hours a week building your author platform there as well.

As you perform these electonic publishing activities, you will see your following grow. It is usually a long and arduous task, but without a platform, you have very little chance taking your book to the next level so the work is worth it if you stick to it.