Creative Writer Worksheet – Author Platform (PDF)
A little strategic and sustained work on your author platform can help you:
- Keep in touch with your readers.
- Get to know your readers better.
- Serve your readers better.
- Launch new stories to better advantage.
- Proliferate your stories to a wider audience.
- Become better known in your genre.
I know keeping up a website, a mailing list, a blog, and a million social media accounts can be daunting. My advice would be this:
Make your platform-building worthwhile on several different levels.
Ensure that it provides secondary benefits. For example, if you want to use Instagram to connect with readers, use it to keep you on track with your reading, and to help you improve your photography skills at the same time. Or if you enjoy Pinterest, use it to curate inspiration for your stories, and to collect writing advice, as well as to spread the word about your work. That way, even if your promotions aren’t as effective as you’d hoped, you’ve still derived some personal benefit from the process.
That way, you can’t fail.
P.S. You may like to take a moment to think about your target audience.