Resolution: Build a Solid Platform

As a writer, my new year’s goals tend toward pages written. And looking at a new year from a publisher’s perspective it’s easy to focus on numerical goals or detailed planned activities. But it’s important to step back and look at broader objectives and try to see the big picture. The big goal, for most publishers will surely be: sell more books. When we look for the big picture ways to accomplish that I think building our platform is at the top of that list.
Publishers want authors with platforms because their books are easier to sell. But if you’re a genre fiction writer having a platform is tricky because what it consists of varies. So for my authors – and my readers here – I will offer a very simple definition.  Think of it this way: for your platform it’s not who you know but who knows you.
In the past, the fiction market often relied on reviews either from professional reviewers or from readers. That has gotten tougher with the flood of books hitting the market today. However, if you have fans built up, have a good website and are active on social media, you actually have a platform. That puts you ahead of most of the writers out there.
To build a stronger platform, you need to do those things that get you in front of your reader. You might consider running ads but readers don't seem to favor them. What they DO appear to like is content that they find naturally, when it’s not pushed on them. That would include blog posts including guest blogging and of course, social media.
Our Marketing Director asserts that a writer does not need to work every social media platform out there. The writer does need to find the ones they’re comfortable with and work them consistently. By consistently I mean daily. If you can spend hours engaging with people that's great, but there’s nothing wrong with a plan to post one thing, engage and move on. Or you can do just a few effective things. Remember, being busy and being productive are not the same. Let me put it this way: if you spend an hour reading your friends’ feeds without posting or commenting, you wasted an hour of valuable marketing time.
Blogging is also a valuable platform building tool, but is often misunderstood. It is, after all, your own voice. Again, it’s great if you can blog every day. If not, twice a week is fine. I only manage it once a week, but I try to be consistent. I think it’s better to have something to say once a week than to post trash every day. I’ve seen blogs where the writer is writing a lot of stuff but it’s not stuff worth reading. You need to write something helpful. If you can’t then write something insightful. If not, at least be engaging. Remember, you can write about your characters, or write as one of your characters. Post an excerpt of your novel. Talk about your writing process, or how you do research. If your writers are readers too, talk about the industry. If you run short of ideas, just wander back through my blog.

Next week I’ll share a couple more ideas for platform building.