The Importance of a Website to Your Author Platform
So you are an author. Maybe you’ve published a book and maybe you haven’t, but you are absolutely a writer and you are ready to start acting like one. You’ve heard an awful lot about this thing called platform, you’ve heard agents and publishers like them, indie authors need them, but what the heck is it, anyway?
To paraphrase Jane Friedman (bookmark her site, wonderful information on writing and publishing: www.janefriedman.com) a platform is what you use to create visibility to you and your product (your books), and to establish your authority. It is about getting your work out where people can see it to extend your network, to help people or entertain people. It’s not magic – though at times it may feel a bit like you’ve fallen down the rabbit hole with Alice.
It is how people find you, get to know you, become familiar with your books and your writing, and come to trust you and what you stand for. Don’t confuse this with advertising and self promotion which will kill a platform faster than a bug zapper kills flies. Platform is a gift that you offer for the taking, not something you push onto others.
In her book Content Marketing, Rebecca Lieb cites data from eMarketer that showed that US adults spend roughly 25% of their time on the internet. She goes on to state that roughly 90% of buying decisions begin with a web search.
Google alone processes over 40,000 search queries every second. That translates to over 3.5 billion searches per day. And according to eMarketer.com adults in the US spend roughly 47% of their time in the digital world.
As authors, one of our biggest challenges is getting an audience and connecting readers to our books. With those numbers you can’t afford to not be where you readers are. This web series will help you get your hub off the ground. Over the next several weeks I will show you how to select and purchase a domain, figure out where to host it, and how to make it available to your current and future fans.
Next week I will cover the importance of self-hosting your website (owning your website name).
If you are not the DIY type, I offer an inexpensive and quick option to get your platform off the ground. You can see the details here.
Happy Writing,
