Your author platform helps you find readers and helps readers find you

Reading time: 2 minutes, 38 seconds

Author Platform. They say you need one if you hope to:

• self-publish your memoir, or
• find an agent, or
• find a publisher, or
• sell your memoir to more than your immediate family. (If you plan to publish only a few copies for family and friends, you probably don’t need an author platform.)

“You can’t assume that the act of printing a book equates to developing a sizable readership,” says Dan Blank.

He’s right. You develop a significant readership—in other words, you sell books—by establishing an author platform which connects you with people and builds relationships.

A platform gives you visibility. It gives you an audience.

Let’s flip this coin over: 

Rather than look what you need, let’s look at what readers need. Did you read Tuesday’s post?

In it, Dianne E. Butts wrote that people:

“need to hear what you have to say, or . . .

need to know what you know. . . .

Write for them. Reach out to them.

Work to reach them with your words.

You will make a difference in their lives. . . .

And isn’t that really why we write?”

Your author platform is how you reach out to them and make a difference in their lives.

So, working hard on your author platform can be a win-win for both you and your readers.

It helps you find people, and it helps people find you—

• people who are interested in your story,
• people who will buy your memoir,
• people who will tell others about it.

But first, a message platform:

Dan Balow, blogging at the Steve Laube Agency, says that a message platform is “the first step for developing the author platform.”

A message platform, he says, “must be in place before you get a website, Facebook Page or start a social media effort.”

Authors who don’t have a good message platform “will be frustrated and discouraged when trying to assemble a large number of devoted social media followers,” he says.

If you’re confused about the difference between a message platform and an author platform, Dan explains it this way:

“Message Platform + media = Author Platform”

What we need, he says, is “a consistent message, delivered creatively, one that attracts readers and followers and meets the expectations they have for you.”

Learn more about developing a message platform by studying Dan Balow’s three blog posts:

Author Platforms 101, Part One: Message Platform

Author Platforms 201, Part Two: Consistency

Author Platforms 301, Part Three: Customer Service

Next, your author platform:

Sarah Bolme offers detailed advice for developing your author platform, which she defines this way:

“Having a platform simply means that you have an audience—a group of people—who listen to what you have to say . . . because you are saying something different from everyone else, something that resonates with them.

“As a result,” she says, “these people trust you and share your message with others. When this happens, you develop influence with this group of people.”

“To be effective at building a platform,” Sarah continues, “you must first identify who your target audience is and what your unique spin on your topic is.”

You’ll want to read Sarah’s post, Do You Have a Platform? and answer questions in the following categories:

• WHO is your target audience?
• WHAT is your unique message?
• WHERE will you hold your audience?
• HOW will you build your platform?

Sarah gives this final advice: “Don’t rush out to start building a platform . . . until you have identified who your target audience is and what makes your message different from all the others out there on the topic.

“You can’t get to your destination if you don’t know where you want to go,” she says.

Dan Blank offers additional help in his post, The First Steps to Building an Author Platform:

• Understanding your Goals
• Identifying Your Brand (including how you represent your authentic self, how your personality makes you unique, and how your brand can be visual)
• Understanding Who Your Audience is and What Motivates Them

Don’t miss Dan’s post! It’s packed with valuable, insightful info. 

Brace yourself—

building a platform is lots of work!

But you can also think of it as

“the expansion of your passion for telling your story,”

writes Matilda Butler at Women’s Memoirs.

I like that!