Author Platforms & Portfolios Pt. 1

By M.J. Moores on April 17, 2014 • ( 0 )

Publicity Tip #29

Do You Need An Author Platform? ~

Whether you’ve been researching the industry for a while or just started you’ve likely come across the idea of Author Branding and an Author Platform and you’re wondering if this is something you have to do. First off, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want want to when it comes to publicity. The key to knowing whether you should create an Author Platform for yourself or not revolves directly around what you want to get out of having your book published.

If you are choosing to self or assisted publish in order to say, “I did it!” and leave it at that; or you’re doing it for family and friends and your goal is to reach a small audience then you don’t need to do much if any publicity and you definitely don’t need an Author Platform.

“Okay,” you’re thinking, “I want to get my book into the hands of a lot of people in my niche market but I don’t have the time to commit to this kind of publicity.” All I can say to that is, what you put into your publicity you will get out of it (as long as you have a professional product to sell and your marketing efforts are based around quality as opposed to quantity).

I also hear, “But Author Platforms are only for non-fiction writers” a lot. The term may have become well-known in the non-fiction market but that doesn’t mean high-selling fiction writers don’t have a Platform – quite the opposite actually (unless you’re Stephen King or John Grisham whose very names sell their work for them).

Quite simply, an Author Platform is an extension of your Portfolio Building.

Author Platforms consist of:

– your genre or niche market

– your public appearances

– your portfolio/paper trail/publications

– your web-presence

– your marketing techniques (personal & general)

The thing to remember is that you don’t build your Platform overnight. It is the amalgamation of your public persona as a writer and everything you’re doing to let the public know about who you are and what you offer – and the consistency in your approach to these matters.

Next week I’ll touch on how your genre or niche market is imperative in building the ground work for your Author Platform. Until then, your homework is to decide who your audience is and whether or not if having an Author Platform make sense for your personal publishing goals – then we can dive in and discover how to work on this confusing idea.