What is an author platform? Which elements should it contain? And is any of this stuff more important than just writing another book? Perhaps not. But certain aspects of an author platform are important tools for reaching readers and, especially, for holding on to them.

The topic can be confusing as everyone seems to be mean something different by the term. And then this problem is compounded by a lot of terrible advice proliferating, quite frankly. Number-chasing nonsense which doesn't serve anyone.

Even the term
"platform" seems to be quite nebulous and elastic — fertile ground for
snake-oil salesmen. Let's nail that down first:

Author Platform – A Definition

Everyone will agree a website is part of an author platform, as well as any blog and your various presences on all the different social media channels, if applicable. But what about your email list? Personally, I think it's most useful to be open here.

An author platform is a writer's collective presence on the internet.

Some dude.

That seems pretty straight forward and uncontroversial. Where opinions diverge is with regard to what an author platform is truly for, and what it should contain. And people often skip over the first part of that and jump right to the second. But it's hard to know if you're building the right tool if you don't know what it will be used for.

There are many ways to slice this onion. Primarily, though, author platforms:

  • entice new readers; and
  • engage existing ones.

You might assume author platforms are largely for finding new readers, whereas I'd strongly argue that their real value is in engaging existing readers, and deepening connections with people we have already sold books to, or otherwise interacted with. More on that in a moment.

The internet is a big place and you can't be everywhere, not if you want to keep producing books regularly — which should always be your main goal. So, what should you focus on? Which platforms can be dispensed with? How can you build a platform worthy of the name with what little time you have?

To put a finer point on it, is any of this worth the bloody effort? Social media networks in particular are giant time-sinks, as we all know only too well. *closes eleventeen tabs*

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