Talk to me about a writer's "platform"

I might as well give up writing if my chances of being published are affected by having a blog. JMO, but I would think agents and publishers looking at fiction would be far more interested in seeing good manuscripts than X number of followers on some social media. Let's face it - there are authors out there, published and aspiring, who are deep in the throes of hoof-in-mouth disease. Blogs are their worst enemy.

It's hard to know. Sometimes the agents and publishers want an author's 'platform' in place, so there will be some built in market for a book. I've seen this especially in nonfiction, where an existing online presence, social media celebrity, or scholarly reputation can really draw attention to the book.

In fiction, I'm not sure platform matters that much, at least for writers early in their career. Look very carefully at any editor or agent *insisting* that you have an established online presence/platform. Then ask them what *they* will be doing to promote or pitch your work. If the promotional burden falls more on you, you may want to find other business partners.

If it comes down to a choice between writing another book, or writing more blog posts, you're probably better off writing the book. That builds a potentially profitable backlist.

I have an almost accidental platform, based off art, fan fiction, and a few published original pieces. I blog about things that interest me. My blog doesn't make money directly, but it does serve as a clearinghouse for my various creative interests. That's all I expect from it.

For fiction, you don't need a platform. Lots of non-fiction sells based on a platform, but that's more to have evidence that the book is worth reading.

For fiction, it's unnecessary. Especially in trade publishing.

Having a platform may not be necessary to get fiction published, but it certainly can't hurt. I've read enough agent blogs where they mention googling an author they are considering to see what comes up. I don't have a blockbuster web presence, but when you google my name, you get me. That isn't going to get me published, but every little bit helps.

If you have no use for blogging, Facebook, Twitter and anything else, then don't do it. If an agent has to pass you off because you don't have a platform established, then wouldn't they be a bad fit for you?

A pre-established platform can make you look like you're ready to be an author, or perhaps you have readers lined up--which is rare. There's been very little success in platforms being profitable before the product was put out, and because of this news people have gotten on a band-wagon of copying it. Which, it doesn't work out most of the time.

I agree with Filigree (this rhymed ). If it was up to me, I'd rather spend time writing than on Facebook, Twitter, and blogging.

Well I'll provide a dissenting opinion. It doesn't hurt to sign up for free things and try them a little to show you're making an effort which in my experience is all a good publisher expects of you.

Getting followers on social networking isn't hard, you just follow people and some of them will follow you back.

In my experience a publisher will ask what you're doing, if you tell them your doing some things, they'll say "cool". You might not want to embarrass yourself by saying "nothing." If you name some stuff they'll probably be happy and leave it at that.

In my experience, platform is everything in non-fiction. Without a platform you are nothing.

Here's a helpful blog post about it:

http://writersrelief.com/blog/2010/...ther-you-need-one-to-get-your-book-published/

For the most apart, platform is neither harmful nor helpful for fiction writers. Most new authors have a platform so tiny it has no major effect on book sales.

If you have a major platform going, it's probably separate from your fiction writing, anyway.

gingerwoman said:

In my experience a publisher will ask what you're doing, if you tell them your doing some things, they'll say "cool". You might not want to embarrass yourself by saying "nothing." If you name some stuff they'll probably be happy and leave it at that.

Click to expand...

If a publisher asks what I'm doing, I certainly wouldn't be embarrassed to tell them I don't have a blog. I will tell them I'm working on the next book...

In fields like erotic romance, sometimes the author has no platform because they want to stay relatively anonymous for career and/or social reasons.

Most of the publishers and agents I've met, have asked their authors to have a blog, Tumblr, FB, etc. by the time there's an actual book release.

Otherwise, they tend to check out our social media presence to see if we're stable enough to work with.

A platform, in this case, is just relevant life experience that uniquely qualifies a writer to expound on his expertise.

It's not important for fiction, for the most part. If you're a doctor, you might have a bit more automatic credibility for medical thrillers, but even then, it's not a requirement by any means.

You don't need a blog - at all. I promise. It's a good idea just to have a basic website, to have bought your name (or a version of your name or pen name) to use as a hub for your presence on the web, but not any sort of requirement or any prerequisite to getting an agent to look at your manuscript. Beyond that, knowing your way around basic social media is a plus, but still not a big deal.

This idea that a fiction writer needs to have a platform is a manic inflation of the fact that it's nice enough news to the industry people if you happen to have a platform, some kind of special connection to the subject matter you tackle in your work. But it's not a strike against your work, or a subtraction of your work's viability if you don't have it. Fiction doesn't need it.

I would go as far as to say that it's actually harmful to your professional reputation if you force a tedious blog of tortured efforts to make something interesting out of basic research and your writerly process. So unless you've got something really zippy to say about any given topic, stick to what you do best. That's where your best chances live.

You don't need it!

For nonfiction, a platform can be critical. For fiction, the best possible platform you can have is a novel that readers love enough to tell all their friends about.

For non-fiction do not conflate "platform" with "be all over social media and kill yourself trying to get a million twitter followers". You need to be a credible author of the material. That need not involve having an internet presence at all, depending on the material and the publisher.

And, yes, having a"platform" can hurt you. For example if you develop a populist pop science platform a serious publisher that emphasizes accuracy of over hype might not want to touch that. Any thing you do that can really help, can also harm--depending on what publisher you are trying to land. If it makes an impression, that impression can be good or bad.

Part of the problem here is that you’re paraphrasing someone and doing so generally that we can’t judge just what the someone really meant. Were they specific about what the meant? Or as vague as your paraphrase?

Because “social media presence” covers a huge amount of ground, all the way from sporadic Twitter posts about trivia to focused web sites with info on a writer’s books and where they can be gotten.

I’d echo what others have said: for fiction even the most popular blog is unlikely to drum up much business by itself. The best it can do is make some people aware that you exist and give them samples of your writing. But the books will sell the books, not the blog.

Such an example is John Scalzi’s site Whatever blog. It gets an average of 50,000 views a day. But although I’m one of his regular readers I suspect a lot of other people have my experience: I enjoy his blog posts but his books leave me cold. After reading online the first few paragraphs of several of his books I got bored. I never even bothered checking them out of the public library which is right across the street from my apartment building.

If you're still interested in this topic, go to AW's forum for exactly this subject: Blogging and Social Networking.

I went to a panel about this topic at a writer's workshop, and while the panelists all felt it's a good idea to be comfortable with social media and that interacting with fans via the web is expected of writers these days, one needn't do all platforms or take time away from your writing to build a web presence before you've even published anything. One also shouldn't expect or aspire to have a blog or site with thousands of followers before one publishes, or even after. While I know of some bestselling writers (Scalzi is one) who have this kind of web following, it's a bit much to expect of someone who isn't published yet, or even from most reasonably successful writers. The blogosphere is pretty saturated these days, and I was surprised to see how few regular followers even some reasonably well-known authors possess. One of my critting buddies and I joke back and forth about having "Tens of followers," just to give you an idea.

And yes, there are writers who I follow even though I don't read their books that much or at all. Sometimes they have amazingly good general advice or interesting ideas or opinions, or even very good taste in novels. I don't know if followers who don't read your books are useless, though. If they ever link stuff you write, or mention you in conversations with their friends, they may gain you new readers that way. And if a writer I follow puts something out that looks like it more up my alley than most of their stuff, then I'll likely give it a shot.

I disagree. I think a social media presence to some degree is important, especially for publishers. I can almost guarantee every publisher looks up an author before they consider buying something from them, be it their facebook, twitter, website...etc.

If the author has nothing, then it tells the publisher that the author won't do any marketing himself. These days, every author has to do marketing to some degree. They also check if the author has the right kind of presence. After all, if a publisher is going to throw a six figure contract at someone, they want to know the author's not crazy or racist or sexist...etc.

I don't think it's necessary that you need a large presence, just an active enough one that they know you're willing to work. Also, find the right sort of social media that works for you. I hate blogging but I enjoy twitter.

John Scalzi is an outlier, of course, but also a convenient example.

I follow Scalzi's blog. I even occasionally bother to comment. It's a very interesting blog. But I only found it after I read his books. And his blog was established years before he was ever even an author.

While it's arguable that he got his first contract due to the blog and posting the novel online, that's not only incredibly uncommon, it's a bit misleading.



As Laer says, he has something like 50,000 visitors a day. But it's not like those are in anyway translatable to sales. People buy his books because they like his books; the blog is just a blog.





I don't think you need a large social media presence to be offered a contract. Generally, your agent or publisher will suggest to you that you generate such a presence once they'd acquired your book, and they'll likely have some advice about what kind of presence to have and how to create it.

For most fiction authors, especially debut authors, it's the books that drive traffic to the website, and not the other way around.

Debeucci said:

I can almost guarantee every publisher looks up an author before they consider buying something from them, be it their facebook, twitter, website...etc.

If the author has nothing, then it tells the publisher that the author won't do any marketing himself. These days, every author has to do marketing to some degree. They also check if the author has the right kind of presence. After all, if a publisher is going to throw a six figure contract at someone, they want to know the author's not crazy or racist or sexist...etc.

Click to expand...

Do you have any facts/figures/quotes from publishers to back up your guarantee? Or this idea that not having something out there in social media world means you won't do any marketing (I'm assuming you mean promotion)? And does my talking about my depression mean a publisher won't buy my book because I'm "crazy"?

A lot of claims there, in other words. If this is just what you think happens, state it as such. If you're stating these things as fact, some cites would be valuable.

I would take a moment here, since we're talking a good bit about social media, to reiterate one of my Author's Points To Ponder:

When deciding what to post to your blog, Facebook status, Twitter-feed, etc. do consider that everyone on your lists ("friends", followers, subscribers, whathaveyou) are there because they found you through your book (by looking it - or you - up) or they know you personally in some way. Point is, they already know you have a book out. So be choosy in what you put online.

Unless a review is very special in some way, there is absolutely no reason to tell all the people who already know about your book that Margie's Book Club gave it four stars. That review is for the people who check Margie's Book Club for reading recommendations. Other people's lists are ways to get new readers and, in general, should not be retweeted, reposted, or blogged about by you unless there is something that would be of special interest to the people who already know about your book.

Now, if the New York Times has something good to say or you make the list over at USA Today or if some minor-to-major celebrity mentions your book in an interview or gets caught on camera reading it on the beach, by all means, tell the people who already know about your book. Otherwise, think of other things to say.

Now, of course, news and links about upcoming works and appearances are fine, as are nods to interviews about your work, but I do think it's important to sprinkle those things in with other, non-your-book-centric content. If a reader has taken the time to seek more information on you or your book, they want something other than that book. If you choose to play in that sandbox, give them what they want.

shadowwalker said:

Do you have any facts/figures/quotes from publishers to back up your guarantee? Or this idea that not having something out there in social media world means you won't do any marketing (I'm assuming you mean promotion)? And does my talking about my depression mean a publisher won't buy my book because I'm "crazy"?

A lot of claims there, in other words. If this is just what you think happens, state it as such. If you're stating these things as fact, some cites would be valuable.

Click to expand...

I have seen several editors and agents mention looking up prospective authors online before accepting queries or manuscripts. I don't think that I've actually seen any editors or agents say that not having a serious web presence implies negative things about an author.

Liosse de Velishaf said:

I don't think that I've actually seen any editors or agents say that not having a serious web presence implies negative things about an author.

Click to expand...

I've never heard that either.

My guess is that if you can put together a blog that is engaging, and not just a bunch of blah blah blah as many are, then it'll help some when it comes time to submit. If an agent likes your manuscript and then goes to your blog and likes that then maybe they'll be a bit more inclined to sign you. It isn't necessary of course. A good book will get you an agent on its own. So I'd say it depends on your skills as a blogger. It isn't an easy thing to do, even though every tom, dick, and harry has one. G'luck.

I'm a digital/social media strategist by day, so I am active in lots of different channels and have been blogging since the 90s. I don't have a huge platform, but it's more than zero, and I earn a living through digital marketing. That combination gives me something of reasonable value to offer to publishers.

The editor who commissioned my book did make reference to my platform, in the sense that they will do everything they can to sell the book, of course, but it will be nice to also be able to leverage my existing audience. It also serves as a good way to keep people interested in my writing between publication dates.

I don't think a lack of digital platform is a deal-breaker, by any means. But it's much harder to establish a platform in months than in years, and can seem disingenuous (if only because it can seem as though you're setting up a platform solely to sell books, which is kind of the antithesis of social media).

Having said that, having social media accounts you don't use, or blogs you never update, can be worse than having nothing. Maybe start with one channel (Twitter is a great place for writers) and see where it takes you.

Debeucci said:

After all, if a publisher is going to throw a six figure contract at someone, they want to know the author's not crazy or racist or sexist...etc.

Click to expand...

Ugh.

I write at length about depression and anxiety, both on my blog and for other publications. My book is also about mental illness. I have a non-fiction hook to go with my fictional story. I can articulate "crazy". I have an existing audience of people who can identify with what I have to say about it.

I would be out the door in a flash if I ever found out that someone was using that as a reason to reconsider working with me.