Jump to ratings and reviews
Rate this book

Every Writer Needs a Tribe

Rate this book
The days of writing the next great novel alone somewhere in the woods and then mailing it in are over.

Today, the authors that make the largest impacts and enjoy the most success engage regularly and meaningfully with their specific readership. If you wish to follow in their footsteps, then you must first build your tribe.

In this book, you'll learn why constructing your own author platform--catered exclusively to your specific tribe of ideal readers--is vital to the hopes and dreams of digital writers. Moreover, you'll learn how the smart authors are building big tribes that allow their writing careers to thrive.

From the five types of platforms to the one weird way to get a larger audience, you'll learn everything you need (and nothing you don't) about nurturing a thriving, raving readership primed to take writing career to the next level.

See you inside!

56 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2012

7 people are currently reading
252 people want to read

About the author

Jeff Goins

38 books559 followers
Jeff Goins is a writer, keynote speaker, and entrepreneur with a reputation for challenging the status quo. He is the best-selling author of five books including The Art of Work and Real Artists Don’t Starve. His award-winning blog Goinswriter.com is visited by millions of people every year, and his work has been featured in the Washington Post, USA Today, Entrepreneur, Forbes, Psychology Today, Business Insider, Time, and many others. Through his online courses, events, and coaching programs, he helps thousands of creatives succeed every year. A father of two and a guacamole aficionado, Jeff lives just outside of Nashville, Tennessee.

Ratings & Reviews

What do you think?
Rate this book

Friends & Following

Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!

Community Reviews

5 stars
42 (29%)
4 stars
59 (41%)
3 stars
34 (23%)
2 stars
6 (4%)
1 star
2 (1%)
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
Profile Image for Adam Collings.
Author 17 books73 followers
May 23, 2014
This book follows on nicely from Jeff’s previous writing book ‘You are A Writer’. This one focuses on platform-building. All artists need a committed group around them to help support their work. Jeff raises the interesting point that it is better to have a small committed tribe, rather than thousands of fake followers who are not paying any attention to what you are saying.

Like his previous book, this one gives a healthy serving of motivation and inspiration, while also providing practical tips on the “how”. You will learn about the different types of platform, and how to gain ‘permission’ from those you communicate with.

This is a short and snappy guide that will be of benefit to all writers (and other types of artists as well).
Profile Image for A.M..
Author 7 books58 followers
November 10, 2015
I am listening to a Jeff Goins video lecture series - another part of my endless quest to learn about writing and blogging. This was a free ebook with the course called Tribe Writers training.
It’s about the idea that you can build success on a good base of hard core fans and it tells you how to start finding them. The magic number is one thousand; or so everyone says. Jeff calls it ‘small is the new big’. Those fans are your tribe. They will read your stuff, and tell their friends about it. They will drive your sales and your popularity. But how do you find them? Or how do they find you?
Here, he suggests how you can start to do that by identifying which group you want to appeal to by identifying who and what you are. To explain, he has five groups: are you an artist, or a journalist, a prophet, a celebrity, or a professor?
Appeal to that group. Find your tribe.
In this short book (42 pages) he talks about social media and how you cannot turn your nose up at it and expect to be a success. That just isn’t how the world works any more. Permission marketing is the best kind rather than interruption marketing - pop up ads are the worst… ugh. He has borrowed this idea from Seth Godin. It’s the way we mute ads, or say we are browsing to the pushy shop person, or we un-follow that author on twitter who only tweets links to their book. It doesn’t work. Why do people insist on doing it?
To appeal to your tribe you may have to narrow your focus. Instead of writing blog posts on everything, pick a topic/genre. Like the habits dude, or the four hour guy. I think this kind of works the same way writing prompts do for me. A giant big project is scary and intimidating because you don’t know where to start. The complexity is terrifying, so you don’t start at all; you procrastinate, you tell yourself you’ll do it tomorrow. But if you have one sentence, and you must write starting from there, it’s easier because you don’t have a choice. Provided that you do finish some of those larger projects. (yeah, AM)
There will be haters and they will probably hate you for the same reason your tribe loves you; don’t fixate on it. But don’t let fear stop you.
This will not be easy. Everything inside of you will want to wait, to procrastinate.
But that is exactly what you must not do. If you feel your heart start to race — if you get a little anxious — you know you’re on the right track.
This is an act of faith. You’re trusting something amazing will happen. And to be honest, it’s a bit of a crapshoot.
But the one thing you can’t do anymore is wait. The world can’t be changed by what it doesn’t see.

Sigh… I know… I have to set up a blog and email list… double sigh.

You will have to work hard - we all knew that, right? There are no easy solutions, but why spend seven years (as Jeff did) doing the wrong thing or appealing to the wrong people?
4 get that mailing list installed stars
Profile Image for Ace.
478 reviews12 followers
November 4, 2015
Inspirational and motivating, Goins' Every Writer Needs a Tribe offers suggestions on how to create a tribe and get one's work noticed. He quotes other big names - such as Seth Godin - and keeps this ebook short and concise. It served as a good reminder that slacking off on the Internet isn't going to help me achieve any of my goals (though one might argue that GR isn't doing much for them, either...).

Much of the advice I'd read before on Goins' blog, such as the five types of blogging voices, so this ebook wasn't groundbreaking for me. A handful of grammatical and formatting issues distracted me from his message, which read a little scattered at times. That said, overall, I enjoyed this quick read.
Profile Image for Bill Tillman.
1,672 reviews82 followers
September 11, 2012
Jeff Goins, is a writer with a passion for the 'Gut Check'. No holds barred, telling it like it is Jeff encourages your real self to come out. To not look back, nose to the grindstone work ethic. TRIBE? Yup that is what this small book is all about, define it, show its strengths and weaknesses; but above all show its power. You will not want to put this down, but that is the best thing you can do, is give it time to reflect and be a part of yourself.
Profile Image for Nick.
746 reviews134 followers
January 17, 2013
Meh. It was ok. Some good advice in parts but suffered lack of focus, namely it often read like a general motivational writer's guide rather than focusing the tribe aspect. Sean Platt & Danny Iny's book How To Build A Blog was actually more insightful in this regard. As for the general writer's pep talk, it was pretty bland. The guy is a blog writer and the book reads like one. But hey it was free for Kindle and they always say not to look a gift horse in the mouth.
Profile Image for Sharon Hughson.
Author 31 books63 followers
October 31, 2015
This took advice from several well-known sources and condensed it into easy to follow steps.
If you're a writer just starting out, get this book. If you're a writer struggling to find your "niche," this book brings a number of considerations about that issue front and center. In fact, I might finally figure out my style (there are five types of bloggers according to Goins) and my central topic. Four years later...yeah, I wish I would have found this book earlier.
Profile Image for Ken.
102 reviews2 followers
February 17, 2016
Jeff is optimistic, but brings a realistic flavor as well. He is constantly encouraging people to do what they want to do, that is, if they want to write. Yet he lets you know that it will take work and won't just happen. He likes to use a lot of incomplete sentences. I do that too, but he uses enough to almost be tiring,

I like this book well enough, but it's a teaser for a whole series of ongoing books. I wonder when I would ever feel I had completed the course.
Profile Image for Lynn Hallbrooks.
Author 7 books112 followers
September 18, 2012
This is a book designed for writers of all types to learn more about writing to a target audience. It is a teaser for the author's paid learning series.

I think this book is great for authors in need of learning a little more about building a platform. It does not go into great detail of how to garner a tribe but it does set out some of the basics.

Profile Image for Amy Young.
Author 6 books79 followers
November 3, 2012
Really a 2.5 ... but not more than that! Yes, it is a book, but it has the feel of "I want to write a book, so I took a bunch of my blog posts and va-la! I have a book." If you've never heard of the concept of tribe/platform, this would be a good place to start, but if you've read anything else, this will seem pedantic.
Profile Image for Gabriella Kuhn.
Author 3 books33 followers
August 25, 2015
Thank you Jeff Goins for this book!
The writing was simple, easy to understand and so POWERFUL! I read the book in one sitting, and went to bed thinking about what I had just read. It made me think to myself--You need to think small before you can go BIG! Definitely going to look into more of his books!
Profile Image for Amanda Fanger.
44 reviews6 followers
March 11, 2013
Simply put, I loved this book. I've read it several times now and plan to read it many more times in my life. The advice given in this book is presented in such a way to make it feel timeless. I think it is a must-read for any writer trying to make it as a pro.
Profile Image for Tim.
1,232 reviews
October 24, 2012
Encouragement and advice for writing and blogging and creating an audience. Simple, brief, and to the point. (e-book)
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews

Can't find what you're looking for?

Get help and learn more about the design.