In case you are new here, I am a big advocate of blogging. I don’t know of a better way to build a platform than starting with a blog as your “homebase” and building from there. This is especially true for authors.

Occasionally, when I speak on the topic of social media, I get push-back from novelists. “Yes, a blog maybe great for non-fiction authors, but what about novelists? What can we write about?”

Fiction marketing in the current publishing environment is an evolving art. Some have described it as the “Wild West,” where anyone can win big. Others have hailed it as the “end of publishing” as we know it.

But for those willing to take a chance—and responsibility—it’s an environment that is full of opportunity. The question for authors is this: How can you best leverage your stories and your brand for the long haul in a quickly evolving market?

In this brief, seven-minute video, I interview Allen Arnold, Senior Vice President and Publisher of Thomas Nelson’s fiction division. I have known Allen for almost 20 years. When I first met him, he was in marketing at Word, Inc., a company that Thomas Nelson eventually acquired.

Allen is one of the most creative people I know. He is truly a great publisher. He has that rare combination of being unwavering in his core values along with the ability to spot projects that have commercial potential. In his eight-year tenure as Nelson’s fiction publisher, he has built one of the company’s fastest-growing divisions and become an industry thought-leader at the same time.

Allen Arnold of Thomas Nelson and and Karen Ball of B&H Publishing Group recently presented a morning track for multi-published authors at the American Christian Fiction Writers Conference. When Allen started talking about building a tribe and using Twitter and Facebook, I saw the color drain from quite a few faces.