I read Platform last weekend, while doing a day of travel. It was the perfect book for me to read in the airport. It’s structured like a lot of books nowadays—short chapters, most likely pulled from blog posts on various subjects. I sometimes wonder if blogs are changing the way we are wired to read content. Short bursts of information becoming more the norm. But I digress.

Platform is written by Michael Hyatt, an author, blogger and publisher. Platform is about just that—building a platform for yourself, your business, whatever venture you have that will have a home base on the web. It’s a “how-to” book covering a multitude of steps from content generation to structuring your platform and growing your audience. The book strikes a pretty good balance between minutia(such as how much to use twitter, when, etc.) and big picture questions(what is the overarching theme of your blog, how are you going to exceed your readers expectations, etc.)

As someone who came into blogging without a defined goal other than to write, this book has been a big help in pushing me to clarify some goals and be more deliberate in how I go about my work. It has validated certain beliefs I already held(and knew I should be adopting) and given me new tools to work with. If you are an artist, blogger or simply running a web-based business and looking to expand your reach, this is definitely worth a read.

You can buy Platform on Amazon.com or BN.com.