The time to start building your author platform is now. Even if you haven’t published your first book, it’s never too early to start branding yourself.
Author Platform
It’s never too early to start building your author platform, though you need to know a little about the road you’re taking to brand yourself effectively. Think about the books you want to write; how can you make people excited about your plans without giving away too much? Look at what similar authors in your genre are doing. What is working? What lures readers in? How can you provide value while selling your book without being pushy? Here are some ways to build your author platform for the long term!
Website
I highly suggest you have an author website—or any website. You can put all of your author information and book details on there. That way, you create a central hub to which all the rest of your profiles are connected. People love to have an organized space with clear information, so they won’t have to search the internet to find what they need.
(Rich) Content
Rich content, to me, are blogs, podcasts & video. Any content that is “long-form”, and not created to be consumed rapidly. The fantastic thing with rich content is that it has the potential to be evergreen. Take, for example, this blogpost: you are reading it now, but other people, a couple of years from now, could also read this. The content is searchable on google through SEO, and if it ranks high, it can attract visitors for years to come! This also applies to podcasts and videos.
Things to post: your process, behind the scenes, excerpts from your work, a serialized story, informational posts (like this one, although this is more geared toward authors instead of readers, but you get the point).
Social Media
Social media is short-form content. It’s content that, in most cases, is only relevant for a short period of time. The amazing thing with this is that you can publish way more of it in a shorter amount of time. Viral content often is short-form content. It’s highly relevant for a short while, and then it usually dies down. But if you get a viral post on social media, it helps a LOT. View social media as a way to pull your people in, and then keep them with your work!
Things to post: posts/text/videos about your life, writing, books, quotes from your work, the behind-the-scenes, etc.
Newsletter
I gave the newsletter its own category because it’s a mix of long- & short-form content. It’s long-form in terms of how it’s presented to you, but it’s short-form in that it’s mostly only relevant at the moment of sending it because only the subscribers you have will receive it. Newsletters aren’t evergreen content unless you post them elsewhere, like as blogposts. They don’t have the characteristics to go viral because you send them straight into people’s mailing boxes. What you get from newsletters, though, is a very personal connection to your subscribers and readers. I think there’s no better way to stay connected with them than by email.
Personal Touch
Look at what’s working right now, but try to give anything you do a personal twist. People are most likely following you for you and your books, so build your author platform how you want to be perceived.
Good luck building your author platform!
Lots of Love,
Britt
