An Author Platform Sells the Author

I heard an interesting statistic the other day from another publisher. They were trying to setup an online store with one of the leading online bookstores, but were being frustrated in their attempts because they could get no support from the online store. Every time they called or emailed they got the same response: “I’m sorry, we’re so busy we are only servicing our top 50 clients”. This publishing company was not among their top 50 clients so no service.

Agents, publicists and publishing companies do the same with their authors. The author gets time if s/he is a best seller. The author may also get time by being a squeaky wheel, but that is only effective until the recipient recognizes the author’s phone number and doesn’t answer. What can an author do to put him/herself forward? Create an online author’s platform.

The concept of an author platform has been around for many years. This is just another name for a resume, a beefed up resume, but still a resume. The author must not only write well (sometimes I think some popular writers must have become popular because they are good marketers – their writing stinks), the author has to speak well, photograph well, display well in video recordings, and generally be an all-around good package to sell. This is a difficult pill for a budding author to swallow. When an agent/publicist/publisher wants to buy, they are not just buying a book or an idea, they are buying the author and the way the author reaches people. Many new authors focus solely on writing their books, dreaming of the Pulitzer, thinking they can work on their platform after the book is published. Unfortunately, the business doesn’t work that way. An author can’t wait until the book sells to build a platform, because the platform is what helps sell the book.

Did you follow that? The platform sells the book. It sells the book to the agent who must decide to take the risk with the author and throw time and money into getting the book in front of the publisher. The platform sells the book to the publicist who must find the right venue to market the book. And the platform sells the book to the publisher, who sees not only book sales, but speaking tours, book signing engagements, book trailers on YouTube, and a myriad of public, television, and radio appearances. The platform tells the publisher that this author has value outside the book.

The platform, the online resume, is either a web page that hangs from the publisher’s website, or it is a website dedicated solely to the author. The platform must include a clear focus on the targeted market. An author that writes children’s stories is not going to target computer engineers. Once the market is defined the rest falls into place. Press releases, blog entries, articles, pictures of events, music, anything that is related to the author can go on the platform. After the initial construction of the author platform, weekly maintenance can keep the web site/page current, active, and changing, which results in more traffic to the author platform, better SEO, and more potential money making contacts.

Contact French Creek Press services at services@frenchcreekpress.com for information about our author pages.