Author platform – who needs it?

I’m not sure I ever set out to develop what is now called an author platform. I started to blog partly for fun and also because of an instinct that in the increasingly digital world (this was back in 2007) it would be good to have an online presence. As an unpublished author it was also a way of finding an audience for some of my writing and of celebrating any successes that came along. If I’m honest I’d also say that knowing I could publish a few paragraphs every week bolstered my confidence...