It’s what you’ve done to make sure you have an audience waiting to buy your book.

The more you’ve done, the stronger your platform. A strong platform will make you more attractive to a publisher, but even if self-publishing is your best option, you still need that platform. You want an audience waiting for your book.

No audience = no sales.

12 author platform building blocks

But how do you build that essential platform?

Here are 12 building blocks to consider for your platform’s support, but before you think, “TWELVE? How can I do all that?“, understand that you only need a few of them.

Your platform should be built on the right elements; not everything in this list makes sense for you and your target readers. If you won’t reach your audience with one of them (for example, your readers might not be on Twitter), then cross that building block off your list of options.

Focus on the pieces that are right for your book and its readers, not anyone else’s.

1. E-mail list and newsletter subscribers.

How many e-mail addresses do you have, but more importantly, how many of them are in your book’s target market? Offer a free gift on your website – the first chapter of your book, a downloadable audio interview, a cheat sheet – in exchange for a name and e-mail address. It’s important to keep your name and topic in front of the people who are most likely to buy your book; a regular e-mail newsletter is an excellent way to do that. Make it useful, not promotional, so that people look forward to reading and sharing it.

2. Online group members.

While LinkedIn undermines its groups, Facebook groups are gaining steam. No matter where it’s hosted, an online group for your book’s topic or genre will help you learn more about your readers and what they want and need. As with everything else, the more members you have in your group, the more that group will add to your platform. (By the way, please join the Build Book Buzz Facebook group to talk all things book marketing!)

3. Media interviews and media outlets that publish what you write. 

Get interviewed by the press, get copies of those interviews, and create a database with the contact information for the journalists who interviewed you. You’ll want the clips, audio links, etc., for your book proposal and you’ll need the database to create a book publicity media mailing list.

Offline and online media outlets that regularly run your articles, videos, and so on will be more open to collaborating on book promotion. A regular column that reaches your book’s target audience is a big plus.

4. Instagram followers.

If your target audience is younger, Instagram is where it’s at for you and your book. Almost two-thirds of its users are under 30. And they are definitely sharing what they read there. Learn how author Kate Hanley does it in “How I use Instagram to sell more books.”

5. Pinterest followers. 

If your book relates to women’s lifestyles — cooking, decorating, crafting, and so on — make sure you’re getting images up on Pinterest. It’s dominated by women who use it to archive and share what they like — including books on these and other topics.

6. Twitter followers.

If you’re self-publishing, you’ll want quality, not quantity. If you’re hoping to get a contract with a traditional publisher, editors appear to be more interested in quantity than quality (sigh), so go for volume. (But understand that if your book is about the mating habits of Icelandic penguins, those 68 social media consultants who follow you aren’t going to buy your book.)

7. Facebook fan page likers/fans.

You don’t need a completed book to create a fan page for it. Post content that gets followers involved and engaged. Invite your fans to bring other fans along, too. Run contests to get more likes.

8. Speaking engagements.

A while back, an editor reviewing my book proposal asked for a list of speaking engagements for the previous and coming years along with the audience size for each. This level of detail helps publishers estimate how many books they can sell – and whether they think they can sell enough. If you’re a speaker who writes, you’re on more solid ground here than a writer who speaks.

9. A blog plus subscribers and traffic.

I’m surprised at the number of bloggers who don’t make it possible for visitors to receive their blog postings by e-mail or RSS feed. They’re missing the opportunity to generate repeat traffic – and to measure their fan base. Google Analytics and other tools and resources help measure traffic volume, too, but a truer measure of your fan base is that list of people who sign up to receive more of your content.

10. Industry leadership.

This not only reinforces your expert status, it also means that industry organizations will be more likely to share information about your book. They might even sell it.

11. Influential contacts.

A favorable testimonial (called a “blurb”) from a recognized expert or thought leader, especially one who is willing to recommend your book to her networks, is almost priceless. Several of these? Golden!

12. Popular YouTube channel.

YouTube is the second most popular search engine. That alone tells you that people watch YouTube videos. But if you need numbers to convince you, understand that more than 1 billion people use YouTube.

How many platform building blocks do you need?

How many of these building blocks do you need to support your platform?

That depends – on your book’s topic, the size of the market for it, and how that particular audience seeks/gets information.

A porch or deck has at least four supports — one in each corner — and sometimes more. The more of the right elements you have in your platform, the better positioned you will be to sell more books to the people who will love them.

What’s holding up your author platform? What building blocks do you have in place?

(Editor’s note: This article was first published in February 2012. It has been updated and expanded.)

Whether you call the people you’re connected to your tribe, fans, followers, or community, you want to be linked to people who will want your book or can help you tell the right people about it.

In the publishing world, that’s known as a platform.

One of the best ways to build a community that will become interested in your book is to create a group for your book’s topic on an appropriate social network. What you don’t want to do is try to build that community on your book’s website.

Where do people gather already?

I’ve worked with a few authors who asked their webmasters to incorporate forums into their fledgling websites. Each had hoped to create ongoing discussions around topics related to their books. Because these authors didn’t have large platforms in place already, getting people to register for their forums and participate was next to impossible. (Should their webmasters have foreseen this and informed them? I think so. Do you?)

I wished these authors received the advice I’m giving you: Create your community where people are already gathered.

Fish where the fish are. Create a group on an established network such as Facebook, LinkedIn, or Goodreads.

Start slowly

Here are a few things to keep in mind as you consider the possibilities:

If you aren’t familiar with groups, join a few first.

Monitor the flow. Determine what you do and don’t like about each group. Get a sense of the structure and rules that might work for your group. To find groups to join:

• On Facebook: Type the topic and the word “group” in to the search option.
• On LinkedIn: Select “groups” on the (tiny) pull down menu next to the search box at the top of the page, then type your search term.
• On Goodreads: Select “groups” in the top toolbar, then type your search term into the “Find groups” search box.

Pick the right topic so you attract the right audience.

Don’t shoot the messenger here, but honestly, too many authors spend too much time communing with other authors instead of with their book’s target audience. If your book’s audience is authors, that’s fine. If it isn’t, make sure you’re focused on a topic that’s central to your book. Then reach out to people who are interested in that topic.

Set rules and enforce them.

I’m a member of several LinkedIn groups with rules that vary. What’s acceptable in one group isn’t acceptable in another. Some appear to be completely un-moderated – those are the groups where spammers start discussions that are just product advertisements. On the other hand, when the rules are so strict that they inhibit conversation and learning, I usually leave the group. Find a balance that’s a good fit for you and your members.

Make sure you have the time to moderate your group and participate in it.

I watched a Facebook group dissolve because a personal crisis kept the founder from blocking spam and keeping conversations on track and relevant. It does take time to police your group. You want to make sure people treat each other with respect (this can be a challenge, unfortunately). Depending on your goals, you might also want to monitor it for spamming and blatantly commercial messages.

Some group managers set their systems up so that they approve every discussion comment before it goes live. Do you have time for that, or do you need something that’s a little less hands on? Figure out what suits your needs as well as the group’s.

Does it make sense for you?

Starting, growing, and managing a group is an excellent way to find and connect with others who are as passionate about your topic as you are. It’s not an option for every author, of course, but it’s something to consider If you’re in this for the long haul.

What groups do you belong to? What do you like about them?

3 reasons you might want to wait to publish your book

By Nina Amir

You’ve got a book idea. Maybe you’ve even written the manuscript. You’re ready to move forward because you’re eager to get to the end goal: published author. After all, it’s your dream to become an author.

Ask yourself this question before you begin to write: Do you want to become a published author or a successfully published author? There’s a distinct difference between the two.

The average nonfiction book sells just 250 copies per year. Novels don’t sell a whole lot more. The average e-book sells only about 550 copies per year.

Successful authors sell an above-average amount of copies. Not only that, they outsell the majority of similar books in the same category, which is how they achieve bestseller status.

I bet you want to be a successful author.

When is the right time to publish?

With that in mind, you want to think twice about rushing off to self-publish your book or even to send off your proposal or manuscript to an agent. Be certain that now is the right time to publish your book. 

In fact, it might be better for you to wait and publish later if you don’t have all the necessary elements in place to create a successful book. If you do hurry to self-publish, you’ll end up sorry you did so when your book doesn’t sell. And if you want to traditionally publish, you’ll be disappointed when agents or acquisitions editors reject your project because they feel the time is not yet right.

So when is the right time to publish? That time arrives when you have everything in place to promote your book. That means you have:

• Built a strong author platform
• Created a sound promotion plan
• Written a book that is unique compared to the competition, necessary in its category, and provides benefit to your ideal reader
• Created authority or expert status 

The four necessities

Let’s look at each of these elements and why they are necessary to produce a successful book.

• An author platform: Your author platform provides the foundation from which you promote your book. In simplest terms, it’s a built in readership for your book. More specifically, it is a combination of visibility, reach, authority, and influence in your target market. Having a platform means you become visible to the target audience you want your book to reach, your audience sees you as having authority, and your audience engages with you at a high level, thereby giving you influence in that market. Ultimately, influence equates to platform. Thus, visibility, engagement, reach, and authority with your book’s target audience gives you influence in that market and allow you to successfully promote your book. Why? Because people listen to those with influence; they follow their recommendations.
• A promotion plan. A sound promotion plan builds on your platform, allowing you to target your potential readers in a variety of ways. Without a promotion plan, you rely solely on word of mouth or the general searchability or discoverability of your book. This is not a recipe for success. It’s better to have a plan comprised of both tried and true promotion tactics and new, creative, and out-side-the-box methods that increase searchability, discoverability, and reach to potential readers.
• A unique, necessary, and beneficial book. For a book to succeed, it must be marketable, and the elements of marketability include being different from the competition, filling a need in the market, and providing benefit to readers. If your book or idea doesn’t fulfill these criteria, it’s not yet time to go to press because it will be difficult to successfully promote the book (i.e. sell the book).
• Authority or expert status. You have to have the ability to write your book. If you are a novelist, you may only need a marketable idea and good writing skill. If you are a nonfiction writer, you also need credentials—expert status or to be thought of as an authority or thought leader in your subject area. Without this, you won’t be credible as an author, and that will make it difficult to promote you and the book. As such, the book becomes harder to sell. 

If you don’t have one or more of these elements, consider waiting temporarily to pursue publishing your project—if you want it to succeed—while you strengthen the necessary elements. The wait will be worth it in the end, because your book—and you—will stand a much higher chance of succeeding.

Which of the four necessities do you score the highest in — where are you the strongest?

Author platform can be a tough concept to grasp, but Jane Friedman describes it well in this comment above that appeared on her blog. In her article, the word “they’re” refers to editors and agents.

But platform doesn’t apply only to authors seeking traditional publishing contracts. Every author who wants to sell books — whether they’re using a traditional, self-publishing, or hybrid model — needs a strong platform in place before their book is published.

Your platform creates demand. It makes sure there are people waiting to buy your book when it’s available.

Resources to get you there

Here are a few resources to help you understand the concept and start building your platform now so that it will support you and your book when you need that platform to stand on:

• “Why you need an audience waiting for your book” on this blog
• “What’s an author platform, part 1” on this blog
• “What’s an author platform, part 2” on this blog
• “A definition of author platform” by Jane Friedman
• “Why you need an author platform and how to get one” from Write to Done

What are your questions about author platform, or what are you struggling with? Share them here.

She wondered how a “newcomer” could accomplish all of this while also trying to write a book.

What she didn’t say, but what’s also important, is that many people working on books have other jobs that pay the bills while they write, too. How do you fit it all in?

Building a following

Who can blame her — and you — for being frustrated with these new publishing “rules?” On the other hand, I completely understand why publishers want an audience in place before they offer a contract. It’s smart.

Let’s face it: You need an audience waiting for your book even if you’re self-publishing.

It’s nearly impossible to start from ground zero with a book and sell enough copies to make it worth your while financially (and emotionally) if you don’t have some kind of following in place already, whether you refer to it as your fans, followers, or tribe (publishers refer to it as your “platform“).

The solution?

Don’t wait until you’re writing to find your audience. Start building your platform well before you start writing your book. In fact, author and marketing expert Seth Godin advises authors to start creating that fan base three years before the book is available.

Who’s in your tribe?

Your built-in audience for your book can take the form of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Instagram connections; YouTube channel subscribers; media connections; blog subscribers; or subscribers to your newsletter.

A list, a blog, and a strong social media presence will give you many ways to reach your fans, your followers, your tribe.

Build that audience even if your book is already out. It will take time to create a fan base, but don’t let that discourage you. Your reward will come through fewer boxes of books stored in your home, more money in your e-book retailer accounts, and messages from readers thanking you for helping them.

How did you build your audience?

In politics and beauty pageants, your platform is a message or goal – “We have got to get more people working!” or “Stop bullying in schools.”

With beds and shoes, it’s about height.

But for authors, “platform” is the word the publishing industry uses to describe your built-in sales network. Who is waiting to buy your book as soon as it’s available? What’s your fan base or following? A publisher might ask, “How many books are we guaranteed to sell because of the author’s platform?”

Is “author platform” a Catch 22?

Sometimes the need for a platform feels like a Catch 22 – you’re expected to enjoy a certain level of celebrity status in your niche to get a traditional book contract, and yet, getting that status can be difficult without a book as a credential.

Not too long ago, an agent told me that she loved my unique nonfiction book idea, but wouldn’t be able to get a publisher for it until I had done several high-profile national media interviews on the topic. Could I get on “The Today Show” based on just my topic knowledge and a handful of successful workshop presentations? Of course not – I needed “author of . . .” after my name to snag that contract-generating exposure.

The social media explosion makes it easier to work around that “you need a few big national media hits” obstacle, though. If you’ve got enough blog or YouTube channel subscribers, Twitter followers, and Facebook-fan-page-likers, your platform might be big enough without a steady stream of national media interviews.

How are you going to build your platform so that people are ready to buy your book when it’s published? Think of it like a stool – the more legs you have under the seat, the safer you feel when sitting on it. Tomorrow, I’ll share a list of 12 platform-building elements to consider.

(Editor’s note: This post was updated in June 2018.)