Posted on

Author Platform Overview

Platform hub and spokesWhat it is

An author platform is where and how the right people (readers, fellow authors and potential collaborators, influencers) can find you, learn about you, and fall in love with you. It’s the engine of your author career.

It’s also a commitment. As you’ll appreciate by the end of this post, creating a fully realized author platform is an organic process that takes work and steady commitment over a long period of time. The good news is that once you get into the habit, it doesn’t take up that much of your time. And it becomes fun!

What it’s not

It is not a place to do hard selling, endless self-promotion, fan your ego, toot your own horn, rant about your favorite pet peeves (unless they’re an integral part of your brand, of course) etc. It’s also not for extroverts only—in fact, and on-line platform is the goddess’ gift to introverted authors (and there may be one or two of us!).

Posted on

Nurturing your email list

Love your fans

Once people are on your list, it’s very worth your while to treat them like the special group that they are.

It is a very well established principle in business that it’s much easier and cheaper to keep an existing customer than it is to try and find a new one. And this goes triple for good customers. Same is true for readers and fans. Especially the loyal ones.

The absolute number one driver of book sales seems to be word of mouth, and there’s no better source of a dynamic word-of-mouth campaign than a cadre of dedicated fans and friends.