But they didn’t, and now they’re playing catch-up. Though they still don’t sell their own books. They work through Amazon and other retailers to do that.

Publishers might not be in such a have-mercy-in-us position if they’d thought ahead.

In any event, one publisher is saying what others have still been reluctant to utter out loud: publishers should sell their e-books themselves, in addition to offering them through Amazon or iBooks.

In an editorial in the trade magazine Publishers Weekly, John Oakes, the cofounder of OR Books, advocates a change in the way traditional publishers do business:

Perhaps we in the industry are so used to being glum that we refuse to see the thrilling opportunity in front of us. We remain committed to doing business the way it’s always been done. Despite a computer on every desk and exciting new marketing tools online, we perpetuate the same old system, working through retailers and treating the electronic world as simply a tool to augment our presence in the real world.

He has a point. It’s not too late.

But in the meantime, for any writer who’s creating his own brand through building a platform to expand his or her message and audience the signs are good that you will have plenty of opportunity to publish your book, either through yourself or your publisher. The stigma of self-distribution, which has long been part of the self-publishing prejudice, is falling, as publishers themselves realize that they have nothing to lose by selling directly to the buyer.

If you decide to self-publish, that’s a viable option. Amazon is a real force here, and distribution is easy. If you decide to work through a publisher, then the publisher will also have options—brick-and-mortar, click-and-mortar or both.

That doesn’t mean you can’t promote what you write or what you’ve written. But what you have now are more and more opportunities to be heard.

You want to take it further. Although you’re probably building toward a book, or you’re breaking down a book you’ve written into blogs, you might consider releasing your book in smaller components. You might offer select chapters of your book as “singles” via Amazon or another online retailer, so that people can sample your work on their e-readers.

This won’t dilute the impact of your final book. Nor will it necessarily take readers away from your blog. It will all help you become better known.

And you might even consider giving away the chapter.

After all, you’re not expecting to make money on your book, are you? Even if you become a bestselling author. The book is part of your platform. Thus any component of a book such as a standalone chapter can be part of that platform for you. In addition to your blogging and your other online work.

Price is an issue in attracting online readers. Low price, or no price, doesn’t mean low quality. Many digital-savvy readers know that e-books are overpriced, and many also know that they can find a lot of interesting intellectual content at practically no price at all.

For you, the thing is to get what you write out there to be read.

But, if you decide to do this, it’s important that you present the reader with something attractive. So work with a designer to create a cover, and to have your work set into type that will appeal to someone. You may be giving it away to build up business, but you don’t want it to look cheap.

And even when a cover is small, its impact can be huge. So think in terms of bold images, bold titles, bold design.

Take care to present yourself as a professional voice with a professional look. You may write your blogs in your pajamas, but you want to be all spiffed up as you find your audience.

And you will. Present your work in a variety of forms. It’s no longer one-size fits all.

Remember when many general-interest magazines used to run fiction? Back in the days before magazines devoted their pages to lists, stunt journalism, how-to features and whatever else other than things literary?

Apart from The New Yorker (which generally only publishes one story per weekly issue) or The Atlantic, which may do that as well (and it’s a monthly), fans of new short-form fiction are out of luck, unless they subscribe to literary quarterlies and the like.

Now the men’s magazine Esquire is going to publish fiction, Fiction for Men. Digitally.

At the same time, the magazine is publishing fiction in its June issue in June, from such big-names as Stephen King and Lee Child, which will only be available in the print and iPad versions of the magazine.

What does this mean for you, burgeoning thought leader, entrepreneur and writer who’s building a platform to broaden an audience?

It means greater and greater acceptance of digital distribution of shorter-form works. It means that even traditional publishing entities, like magazines, see the market in digital-only content.

It means that you have more options than ever for getting your message out.

I thought about this also while reading through today’s New York Times, which published a story that took up the first few pages of its Monday sports section, devoted to a noted runner. Micah True, who died. He’d been featured in a book Born to Run, and the Times article covered his later life.

Interestingly, the Times offers the article as an MP3 download and as an audio file read by the actor Jay O. Sanders. It all comes with the digital subscription (or for those who have digital access).

This is forward-thinking – a way to disseminate an interesting article. And perhaps I’m more used to digesting things on an e-reader (and I say this as someone who still reads a newspaper the old-fashioned way, on paper). But seeing the four broadsheets of newspaper with the dense type, my heart sank: who really has time to read something this long and potentially interesting over breakfast?

I wonder if this could also be marketed as a standalone, 99-cent single. It makes sense.

In any event, content can get distributed.

Of course, readers have long thought that. Why else would e-books become so popular, and writers decide to self-publish more and more, bypassing the traditional publishing model?

But mainstream media continue to scoff at self-published works, and belittle the efforts of authors who’ve decided to take publishing into their own hands, whether through Amazon or Barnes & Noble or Apple or other companies that provide services that allow authors to bring their works to an increasingly hungry digital reading marketplace.

I remember reading not too long ago a request for reader submissions for their favorite book of the last year  in which the writer said that readers could only choose among books published in hardcover or paperback – belittling the efforts of anyone who decided to choose another route. This was from a website and the author of the article didn’t see the irony in this prejudicial request.

The book in question here, though, Wool, will also be published by an imprint of Random House UK. But obviously before that happened director Ridley Scott and producer Steve Zaillian saw something in author Hugh C Howe’s science-fiction novel that could be a big-screen thriller. Since publishing Wool in July 2011, the author has written four more books in his series.

For anyone who’s building a platform in order to attract readers and grow an audience for your ideas and your book, this represents further proof that you have other opportunities to publish your work.

Traditional publishing remains a goal for many authors – and the author of Wool had said how delighted he was to have his book appear in print in this way – but it’s not the only goal.

Your goal is to reach readers. I know that many European publishers have taken to scouring the e-book bestseller lists in hopes of finding a new voice to purchase for translation overseas. They feel it’s more likely to discover someone interesting than by going for the works, even the good works, published by a traditional firm.

So more and more, the e-book stigma is disappearing. And  if Hollywood has begun looking at e-books more seriously, then you should, too.

When we concentrate on similarities in business the differences aren’t that important.  Problems arise when the differences appear to be all there are. When entrepreneurs focus on the perceived differences between each other in business, these differences can become stumbling blocks to developing a strong relationship, which is, after all, the ultimate goal of networking. A difference in communication and behavioral styles exacerbates perceived differences.

Understanding those differences becomes very important as we do business around the world. I have asked experts on networking in several Asian countries to share their advice with me on how to do business in the Asian market.  Interestingly, their advice is not the same for every country.

One of China’s leading experts on networking, Jihong Hall, says that “face is everything to the Chinese.” When used in a business context, face is not something you wash or shave but is something that is granted or lost.  In China the word face is an idiom for dignity, prestige, honor, respect and status. According to Hall, Westerners often make jokes either at their own expense or at other people’s expense: They have a knack for laughing at themselves.  She strongly recommends, however, that you do not do this with the Chinese until you know them very, very well.  If you lose their face you will lose their business.

She has three additional recommendations for working with the Chinese:

• When negotiating, always keep plenty in reserve. A deal must be a compromise in which you have given enough ground so that their face is satisfied.
• Numbers are very important to the Chinese. For example, if your company was formed in 1944 it is best to not mention that date because 1944 means “death, death” in their culture. Even prices and fees that are charged are guided by the right numbers.
• How you look is VERY important. Dress well.  Smart casual dress is fine but wear stylish clothes.

Vietnamese business networking expert, Ho Quang Minh, also recommends that you “look formal” when doing business in Asian countries. He says:

• Westerners should be aware that some Asian business people may talk less because they do not feel comfortable speaking English. Don’t assume that they are not highly successful and even driven business professionals because they come across as quiet or reserved.
• Discuss business over a meal. Do not go straight to the point at the first meeting.

Thai and Malaysian business networking expert, Avryl Au, has a couple of additional recommendations:

• When doing business in Thailand, do not shake hands.  Thais instead put their hands together (palm to palm) and place them just in front of their face, with closed mouth, then they bow slightly.
• In Malaysia, Au says that the handshake is the official way to greet someone, but after that you put your right hand on your heart. While Westerners generally have a firm handshake, in Malaysia, however, the handshake is generally softer. This is not a sign of weakness.  It is simply the cultural norm.

Asato Ohno, one of Japan’s leading experts on networking says, “one big difference between the Japanese business culture and Western business culture is an activity the Japanese call “nominication,” which means drinking communication.” According to Ohno, “in order to build any kind of meaningful business relationship with your associates, you must go out for dinner and drinks.”

While this concept is not foreign in Western business culture, it is something that is much, much more important in Japan. Ohno says that, “people believe they can build a deeper relationship with others more quickly by drinking together. It is almost like having casual one-to-one’s regularly. Therefore, it is important for any business person to prepare and to plan for ‘nominication’ sessions in order to be successful.”

So, with that last recommendation, I think I’ll set a reservation at a local restaurant, contact some business associates and start a little nominication of my own.

Cheers.

Called the “father of modern networking” by CNN, Dr. Ivan Misner is a New York Times bestselling author. He is the Founder and Chairman of BNI, the world’s largest business networking organization. His newest book can be viewed at www.BusinessNetworkingandSex.com. Dr. Misner is also the Sr. Partner for the Referral Institute, an international referral training company.

If you read a lot of newspapers (and you should, since they can provide you with ideas for your own writing, especially if you’re building a platform and using your blog to create a book), you’ll notice that journalists often try to end an article with something memorable. At The Wall Street Journal, where I worked for many years, we called this a kicker.

For a kicker, you tried to reiterate the theme or news of the feature or the article by finding an appropriate quote with which to end, something maybe a little humorous or ironic.

Many times I had to call sources back, or re-interview someone I’d spent an hour with on the phone, to get the kind of kicker that my editor wanted. It often seemed to me at the time that editors were more concerned about how to end an article than they were about what was in it, and that I needed to find the kind of quotes they wanted to hear rather than what the interview subjects actually said. Little wonder that some journalism is considered suspect: For some newspaper and many magazine editors, it’s about presentation, sometimes at the expense of content.

But good reporters know how to end (and begin) their articles with flair.

Consider this excellent example of a kicker from a recent column by David Carr in The New York Times (you can read the full story here), in which Carr describes the new ways of watching television (unhooked from broadcast or even cable):

At some point, the laws of both gravity and economics will begin to pull down the upfronts, and with them, the fundamentals of the television business. Jeff Gaspin, who used to head entertainment at NBC, told Bill Carter that he and his son recently decided to catch up on a particular series and so assembled episodes from a variety of sources — iTunes, Netflix and the DVR. They saw all the past episodes in time to watch the final one live on AMC but found that commercials interrupted their experience.

So what show demonstrated to the former television executive that the old way of watching television was losing relevance?

“The Walking Dead.”

Neat, huh?

But when you’re writing a blog, and engaging in a continuing and expanding dialogue with readers, you want to end with something that will lead your reader to comment.

So, your blog is not only an exploration of an idea, but also a sort of challenge to a reader. You will want to end with a question, asking your readers to tell you what they feel. Sometimes readers don’t need to be prompted – but sometimes a prompt will get them to leave you a comment. And this helps your blog and your site become more dynamic.

What about it? What kind of questions do you end your blogs with?

Now there’s an opening line.

Have you wondered how to get to the point fast in your blog posts?

Well, think big – that is, challenge the reader, or demand something of your reader. Then elaborate on your argument. Novelists do it all the time.

Consider these great openings:

“Call me Ishmael.”

” It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”

“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.”

“They threw me off the hay truck about noon.”

You’ve probably recognized those sentences from Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca and James M. Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice. Sure, these are novels, not blogs.

But openings are important no matter what you write.

Look at the thinking behind the four opening sentences from these noted novels: Melville begins by placing the protagonist as a witness to events, and his name, Ishmael, is a biblical reference to his prophetic and wandering nature. We know immediately that we are being drawn into a heightened universe of symbols, told with the immediacy of someone who claims to have been there.

In Jane Austen’s first sentence, we see already the ironic humor that was one of her trademarks, introducing us to a knowing, comic worldview.

In the opening sentence from Du Maurier, we have a dream and a place, and are thus given a hint that this the narrator will tell us about a regretful lost world: there’s mystery and allure.

In James M. Cain’s punchy sentence, we are immediately given the point of view of a hardboiled drifter, someone who apparently rolls with the punches.

All this from a few words?

Yes.

So, how do you go about crafting a great opening line? If you’re creating a platform for your ideas,  you will want to expand your reach, and so you will want to make sure your writing is punchy and powerful.

First of all, think of a way to grab your reader. For examples beyond these I’ve cited here, look at a newspaper or magazine you like, and see what professional writers do: they always try to create a striking first impression by pulling you into their article. (I realize that your blog is more attraction than promotion, but good writing can be both.) They aim to upend expectations: look at something from a new angle so that you continue moving ahead into the article.

Challenge, amuse, intrigue or irritate your reader: you want readers to find out what you’re going to say. So say it upfront in a way that will make them want to see how you elaborate what your argument is.

Next, we’ll look at closings.

I thought of this when looking at a writer’s forum on LinkedIn, the networking site for various professions and employments. The moderator of the site had said that people in the forum shouldn’t use the forum to post links to their services, but to use the forum as a place for an exchange of ideas.

Some of the writers took offense at this, declaring that they wouldn’t post any longer on the forum. They seemed to misunderstand what the moderator was saying. She had specifically said that another part of the forum existed where writers could post links to their services, but this forum was for discussion, not sales.

Those writers who misunderstood what the moderator meant might also misunderstand the nature of building an online network of followers.

Since many people are creating platforms to attract an audience to their ideas, it’s worth repeating some of the basics.

• You want, above all, to be authentic. That is, you want to be part of the conversation rather than someone who looks at a conversation merely as a jumping-off point to talk about yourself.

• Look for blogs or newsletters in your field. This way, you’ll not only be able to identify with the writer (and the other people who comment), you’ll be able to offer your expertise.

• For every blog post you write, make three comments on other people’s blogs. This means that you will be actually reading what other people have to say (rather than living in a bubble of your own ideas) and be engaging with others, offering your genuine take on what’s being said.

• You don’t need to add your blog name or website. That’s because when you make a comment on a site, the site asks for your name. This is important: You are there to be part of a conversation, not an advertisement for yourself. The comment should never include a link to your blog post. Rather, the URL you provide should go back to the blog post you want to drive traffic to.

• Use your real name (or the name under which you write). Anonymity is for those online hooligans who insult others (you’ve seen comments like these). You are there to be part of a conversation, not to indulge in pettiness.

• For every blog post you write, you should write five other micro-blogs about what you’ve written. Put these micro-blogs (basically an encapsulation in about 25 words of what you’ve written) onto Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Goggle+ and Reddit.

Remember, commenting on other blogs and social media sites should never be promotion It should always be conversational. You want to start and continue a conversation. It’s attraction, not promotion.

You’ll get noticed quite quickly.

Some people have a lot of ideas generating around in their fertile imaginations (Stephen King, for example), while others find that a few simple tips can help them not only find, but remember, inspiration.

If you’re building a platform for your ideas, you’ll want to be blogging and contributing comments to other sites. And even if you’ve got a good idea what your message is, and where it’s going, you still will find that you need to come up with ideas for future posts.

Here are a few suggestions, which have worked for me.

• Keep a notebook with you. No, this doesn’t mean you’re a pretentious hipster type with delusions of artistic grandeur. It means you’re a hardworking person who tries to see the world and remember it. A notebook can be anything from a thin little Moleskine booklet to a spiral-bound reporter’s pad to the notes program on your smartphone. What you want to do is jot down things that strike you when they strike you. You never know what this will lead to.

• Send yourself emails or even texts with your notes, ideas, random thoughts, whatever. If you’ve got a voice-enabled phone, this is easy: it’s like taking notes, but ensuring that they exist in the digital world for you to retrieve later.

• Read. A lot. Don’t just scan newspapers – engage in the articles. Read books. Read blogs. Read RSS feeds. You want to do more than look at headlines, because often buried in the meat of an article is an idea that you could expound upon, and even build your message with. So read – and keep your notebook handy when you do.

• Engage in a conversation. That’s right. A real conversation. Not just an online text. As the MIT social scientist Sherry Turkle, author of the book Alone Together, said in an interview, more and more people are connected, but fewer actually converse. So put the device down and pay attention to the people around you. You’ll be rewarded not only with ideas, but of an appreciation for people as people, You know, the ones who make up your audience.

• Read the comments. When you are looking over all the RSS feeds and blogs that you devour each day, make sure to comment, as this helps to draw people to your own message. More important, many of these comments will likely also contain nuggets of ideas. This is important to your continuing engagement with a tribe of thinkers.

• And keep writing. Your ideas will come more naturally the more you write.

There isn’t. But if you follow a few tips, you will find yourself more productive, and, presto – like magic a book will be born.

1. Keep to a schedule. This means that you write every day, or five days a week, or four days a week at a certain time that you shouldn’t try to vary. Stick to it. If you go to the gym at 8 every morning, why don’t you get up a bit earlier and write before you get to the gym? If you can stick to a certain schedule for exercise, you can do it for writing, too.

2. Give yourself a word count. Each session. If you’re writing a blog, keep your blogs to about 350 words. If you are writing a book, keep it to something manageable, like 600 words. Or fewer, if that’s all you can manage. But get something down on paper (or online).

3. Turn off the email. Don’t stop what you’re doing every two seconds to see if you’ve got mail. You’ll get mail. You can get to the mail when you’re done your writing for the day.

4. Don’t check out the Internet until you’ve finished. Even if you’ve got to check something on Wikipedia, make a note of it, and check it after you’ve done. This way you won’t get lost in a maze of clicks that lead you further and further away from the task at hand.

5. Don’t read Facebook. See the tip about the internet, above. You don’t want to fall down that rabbit hole just yet, while you’ve got work to do.

6. Write. Then rewrite. Get it down. Don’t second-guess yourself, or you won’t move forward.

7. Keep a notebook with you. Jot down ideas, little comments, things to remind yourself of what you want to write. It’s easy to forget something that can lead to an even better idea. So a small notebook carried throughout the day can ensure a continuing supply of ideas.

8. Write where you’re comfortable. Or make yourself comfortable to write. Stand, sit, lie down on your bed or couch – whatever it is that lets you get down to business. This can be a coffee shop, or a basement, or a bedroom, or your office. You’ll know it. But once you’ve found your spot stick to it (see number 1, above).

9. Don’t stop until you’ve written something. Anything. You need to get into the habit of writing, rather than wait for inspiration. Inspiration comes from hard work, not from sitting around waiting.

10. Finish what you need to say, but up to a point. If you’re struggling with a thought, hold it – but get part of it on paper. You’ll find yourself thinking about what you’re going to write the next day, and by the next day, you’ll have found the answer to what you were looking for. Really.

These things work for me. You may have your own: If you’ve got a list of tips, we’d love to hear from you.

The important thing: get writing, and make a difference in the world.