Introduction to Initial Thoughts

I remember the first time I heard of an author’s platform. My initial thoughts? “What’s that?”

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Looking for Help

Nine years ago, I had an excellent idea for a book and was looking for help. I attended a webinar for a company that offered a white-glove service to prepare a book proposal for submission to a publishing house. I purchased the rather expensive service and, surprising them, by completing the book proposal.

Their task after I’d gone through all the difficulties of putting together the different elements of the book proposal was to edit it for me. And I had to insist they complete that task, which they did, but reluctantly.

Nowadays, I know that they’d count on all their clients not finishing the first part of completing a book proposal. But I did. I remember the company’s owner calling me and saying how much she admired me.

Flattery will get you nowhere, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Then, I learned publishers and literary agents before them wanted authors to have a platform already. What’s a platform?

Social Media Followers

Followers are on social media. Nearly a decade ago, that meant being on Twitter and Facebook. With massive followers, literary agents found getting publishers to agree to a book deal easier. Or at least seriously consider it because followers meant higher sales.

Now, there’s a whole lot to unpack here. Assumptions are everywhere. But publishers and literary agents wanted authors to have already done the hard work of creating an audience.

Fifty years ago, publishing houses were expected to build that audience. And so, they did. But now it’s the responsibility of the authors.

If you approach a literary agent to see if they’ll take you on as a customer, they’ll ask you where your audience is located and its size. Plus, wherever your audience is, your growth velocity is on each site.

For instance, I now have an author’s platform for another business venture. Yes, I did write a book proposal nine years ago. But no, long story short, I did not traditionally publish my book.

Instead, I self-published it and learned a LOT about how and where to build an author’s platform. I plan to share those skills and resources with you here on my Your Author Platform website, podcast show, and YouTube channel.

I’ve Already Done It!

I’ve held 222 livestreams for my other business based on a non-fiction book I wrote in 2015. I stream to my 17,893 member Facebook Group and my 49,000+ subscriber YouTube channel with just over 1,000 videos and five million views. That Facebook group size is stable, but my YouTube channel still gains 500+ subscribers a month.

I’m not mentioning all this to brag. I say this to let you know that I know how to build an author’s platform. As you may notice, this is my first article on this new website.

And I’m so glad to be here. I also have a dedicated YouTube Channel, podcast, Facebook Profile, and Facebook Group. I started setting up each of these about two weeks ago. This is the first article, which will become my first live stream.

And my first podcast episode. As we’ll discuss in future live streams, articles, and podcast episodes, starting a podcast takes a couple of episodes before it starts to be available everywhere, which hasn’t happened yet but will.

First, publish an episode. Next, get it on Apple Podcasts, where from there it will be distributed to hundreds of apps. And then get it on Gaana, Spotify, iHeartRadio, and all other specialized destinations.

Fiction and Non-Fiction, Both

I’ll be covering what choices I successfully made for my other non-fiction author’s platform, the informed choices I’m making for this second non-fiction author’s platform, and what choices I’m making for yet another author’s platform, which is a fiction author’s platform.

Science fiction under my pen name J. Hiram Peacel is my first initial, middle name, and last name translated into English. To be clear, I successfully built an author’s platform for my first non-fiction book, where book revenue was 4.3% of my total business revenue. Put another way, I’ve made 20 times my book sales with other revenue streams.

And so can you. I’ll show you how.

Standing Out from the Crowd

To get you started thinking about building your author’s platform, realize why you need to do so. Today’s internet is fragmented. Yes, there were something like 250 social media sites a decade ago, but the dominate ways to reach most of your audience were Facebook and X formerly known as Twitter.

That’s not true anymore. Now, there are a bunch of prominent social media platforms. But that means they each control a small market share.

But your job in this article is to realize how little you care about that. What you want and need is to connect to your audience. You don’t want or need to be a single person screaming in a packed stadium, just like everyone else.

Sticking with the simile, you want to be the comic entertaining people on a train about to pull into Grand Central Station. At a baseball stadium, you want to be that person telling interesting stories in line at the hot dog counter. Yes, train cars and hot dog vendor lines don’t have many people in them.

But we’re not talking about physical train cars and hot dog lines. We’re talking about you being in the ear of your podcast listener, speaking directly to them. Or on a livestream, where they can ask a direct question and get an immediate answer.

Or on Facebook, X, Threads, Reddit, emails, and website comments. Being in all those places may seem like a lot to accomplish, but I’m here to tell you it is not. Yes, you’ll need to learn a few things:

• How to speak into a microphone.
• How to look into a camera.
• And remembering to smile under both circumstances.

Yes, even when recording a podcast. Because you BET, your audience can tell if you’re smiling.

Connecting to Your Audience

Explaining all these things and more will take a bunch of articles. And that hasn’t happened yet unless you’re listening to this several months or perhaps into the future.

If you are from the future, then hello, future people! One question! Do we have jetpacks yet? No? Dang it.

You need and want to connect to your audience. Why connect? Because that’s how you will make money.

So, why not just say that you need and want to make money? Because first, you connect to your audience. Then, a side effect is making money.

With today’s internet shenanigans, your credibility matters. And it is so easy to tell when all someone wants is your money. If you’re not there to connect, everyone will know.

It’s everywhere. And the best way to stand out from those who want money only, is to be sincere, if that makes sense. It’s so obvious.

Just Start

Please understand the subtly here. You can and will make money. And haters will say you’re only in it for the money.

But being paid for a helpful service isn’t scamming someone. Jealous and envious people ignore this distinction. And so will some of your competitors, who have their ulterior motives.

Again, that’s another topic for a future date. There’s so much to discuss! I admit this.

Where do you even start? Well, use my example.

Go live. Say hello. Talk about what you’ve done and what you want to do. Move forward.

And before long, you’ll have a popular YouTube channel, Facebook groups, podcast, website, email list, membership groups, and online courses. I have it for my other business and will have it for this business as soon as possible.

I hope you enjoy and get value from the ride.

Summary of Initial Thoughts

Your initial thoughts should be that you want and need an author’s platform. Why? To connect with your fans and grow more popular.

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