Create an Author Platform BEFORE you need it!

The same question is asked by publishers, reviewers, and booksellers about a new book: Who is reading this writer? The solution is a solid author platform. It is your audience, visibility, and trust you create around your work, and it is much easier to build up to launch day than to build after.

This guide will explain what an author platform actually entails, how it works differently for novels, business books/memoirs and most of all where you can get expert help to save time.

The REAL definition of an Author Platform.

A lot of writers believe that having a platform implies having a large following. It doesn’t. Numbers don’t really tell you if your book will sell.

There are three elements of a working author platform:

• A target audience that you can contact directly – e.g., an email list
• Instagram’s visibility refers to where readers (aka followers) discover you.
• The credibility of the person you’re talking to, is the proof that you have something to share with them or you have something of interest that you have lived through.

Five hundred active followers will perform as many as twenty thousand passive followers will do for a launch. To sum up all that, depth trumps size.

This is important due to discoverability. The author platform is the way in which readers will “meet” you if they can’t buy a book .

Construct the Audience Prior to the Book

Collecting people is the first thing to do, not likes. Email list is the only audience you can own, so begin with an email list. Social algorithms change anytime without notice, but a subscriber remains a subscriber.

Offer incentives for enrollment. Instead of “join my newsletter,” a sample chapter, a short story, a checklist, or a behind-the-scenes note are better. Include sign-up on your website, bio and at the end of each post. Our guide to growing your author newsletter shows how to reach your first thousand subscribers. Blogging is also a help, as it provides readers and search engines with something to locate.

Then locate 1 or 2 places where your readers already hang out and stay there. Some channels used properly will overcome many channels used improperly.

Measure What Matters

Follower counts are nice to have, but they don’t tell you much. A healthy platform shows up in other places:

• The number of new email subscribers you have every month
• How many people open your emails and reply to them
• How many times readers ask when the book will be released.
• Who has shared your content, without you asking them to?

Likes don’t count as replies and shares. Check these once a month, and change what isn’t working.

The other way around is also true: It is your book type that influences who you build for.

A novel, a business book and a memoir attract different readers in different places. So the audience should be influenced by the book you make.

Novels: Find Where Readers Gather

Fiction readers converse with one another. Look for the reading communities, review groups and book clubs where fans of similar novels already are, and take part before you promote anything. Provide advance copies to a limited number of readers and seek feedback and word-of-mouth marketing. We’ve created an author’s guide to social media that will help you decide where to devote your time.

Business Books: How to Build an Audience, That Can Buy in Numbers

Business books are more frequently sold on their merits than on their shelves: often businesses purchase them in bulk, event planners hire speakers, and professionals recommend them to their staff. It should therefore be a list of correct people, like industry leaders, conference organisers and journalists who write about your area of expertise. Build those relationships as early as possible before launch. As is the case with any book launch, it can begin boardroom dialogues.

Create a Community that Shares the Story (Memoirs).

Readers see themselves in your memoir. Seek out communities related to your story, whether support groups, forums online, alumni groups, or cause-based organisations, and give back first before you ask for what you need. Those doors can be opened with short essays and talks. People in these communities pass on a memoir to individuals they trust, and that is the most powerful recommendation that a book can get.

An age of onset and a pacing of the onset.

Preferably start at least six months prior to launch, and preferably earlier. Slow growth starts and slows but then compounds.

A brief timeline helps:

• Six months out: set up your sign-up form, write your first emails and start joining reader communities
• Three months out: deliver sample content, engage media, event organisations and send early draft material to a few readers
• Launch month: personalise your list review and purchase info, ask them to read and share it, and then continue to use it personally

Rhythm and burst of effort. Send one e-mail every two weeks, post one blog every week, make one media pitch every month, for instance. Additionally, build up your author platform with your book launch plan. However, the task of book promotion only begins with reaching readers; reaching readers who will actually buy and purchase a book is the other half.

Knowing the role of a Professional Support.

The majority of writers can get an e-mail list up by themselves. The challenge is to know which audiences to target first and where the reader, event organiser and media communities are going to open the doors.

This is where the expertise of an experienced publishing partner comes into play. They already have an understanding of where and to whom you might post your content, so you don’t have to do a lot of trial and error, and you can link your platform to a launch plan. If you’re not sure exactly what type of assistance you require, check out our literary consultant vs literary agent guide. You play an important role in this as well; look at our post on author personal branding.

Start small and build up gradually.

It’s not a perfect approach. Begin this week with one thing: A sign-up form and a first email to friends who are already acquainted with you. Establishing an author platform is a series of small, repeated actions and the list you have when you launch your book determines how many readers will see it in its first week.