The author platform, built for a nonfiction book.
An author platform is the people you can reach directly who already trust you on your subject. For a consultant, advisor, coach or executive writing a book, most of it already exists in your clients, your network and the rooms you speak in. This guide covers the six parts, which to build first, a 12-month plan and what to count.
What an author platform is
Your platform is your ability to tell people about your work and have some of them act on it. It is not a follower count. A list of 400 past clients and peers who open your emails is a stronger platform for a business book than 40,000 followers who scroll past.
Publishers ask about platform because it predicts who will hear about a book. Scribe Media's chapter on writing a nonfiction book proposal tells authors to highlight their "credentials, experience, and platform" in a way that relates directly to the book's subject. If you publish the book yourself, nobody asks, but the same question decides how far the book travels: who will you tell, and why will they listen?
Start with the reader. A platform is only useful if it reaches the people the book is for. If you have not named that reader yet, start with Lesson 1.
The six parts
Most nonfiction authors' platforms are built from some mix of these. You do not need all six.
| Part | What it is | Where to start |
|---|---|---|
| Email list | People who asked to hear from you, by email | The author newsletter guide |
| Home base | A website with your bio, the book, and a way to join the list or contact you | One page is enough to begin |
| Network | Clients, past clients, colleagues and peers who know your work | A spreadsheet of names, before anything public |
| One social channel | The single place your readers already spend time, usually LinkedIn for business books | Post on a fixed schedule |
| Stages | Talks, workshops and events where your reader is in the room | Lesson 8 |
| Media | Podcasts, publications and newsletters that invite you to reach their audience | Lesson 5 |
Your pages on Amazon and Goodreads are part of the home base too. Set them up once with the Author Central guide and the Goodreads guide.
Owned and borrowed audiences
Two of the six parts are yours: the email list and the home base. Nobody can change the rules on them. The other four are borrowed. A social network can change what it shows, a podcast host decides who comes back, an event organizer picks next year's speakers.
Borrowed audiences are where most people first meet you, so you need them. The habit that turns them into platform is to give every borrowed audience one reason to join the owned one: a chapter guide, a worksheet, a checklist from the book. Say it at the end of every talk and podcast, and put it at the end of the book.
What to build first
Most experts start with more platform than they think. Before you post anything, do these three things:
1. List the people who already know your work
Clients, past clients, colleagues, peers, event organizers, the people you trade referrals with. For most consultants and advisors this is a few hundred names. These are the first readers of the book and the first members of the list.
2. Put up the home base
One page: who the book is for, a short bio, a way to join the list and a way to contact you. The Launch Plan Builder puts this on your calendar with the rest of the launch.
3. Choose one channel to show up on
Pick the one your reader already uses, and set a schedule you can keep for a year. Once a week, kept up, does more than daily for a month.
A 12-month plan
This plan assumes a few hours a week and a book that comes out somewhere in the middle of the year. Move the months to fit your date.
| Months | Build | Every week |
|---|---|---|
| 1 to 2 | List the people who know your work. Put up the home base and the list sign-up. Choose your channel. | One post or note on the subject of the book. |
| 3 to 4 | Invite the people on your list of names to join the email list, one by one. Send the first issues. Write your guest sheet and topics. | One post. One issue every two weeks. |
| 5 to 6 | Start pitching podcasts and events for the launch window. Recruit early readers from the list and your network. | One post. One issue. Two pitches. |
| 7 to 8 | Launch. Send the book to early readers, hosts and organizers. Ask every audience to join the list for the chapter guide. | Interviews and talks as they come. |
| 9 to 12 | Keep pitching. Turn the best questions you were asked into issues and posts. Plan year two from what brought people in. | One post. One issue. Two pitches. |
For the launch weeks themselves, see Lesson 6; for what happens after the first year, Lesson 9.
What to count
Count things you can see yourself, monthly, and compare with your own last month:
- Email list size and how many people open and reply.
- Where new subscribers came from: which talk, podcast or post.
- Invitations: podcasts, talks and articles you were asked to do, not only the ones you pitched.
- Conversations: calls, meetings and inquiries from people who found you through the book or the platform.
Follower counts are worth noting, but they are the least reliable of these. Lesson 10 covers measuring a book's results in more depth.
Real authors' platforms
Ron Thurston, author of Retail Pride and Human Pride, describes his platform work in his Scribe story: he posts on LinkedIn every day, built an email list of several thousand people early on, and still uses that list every week (read his story). These three authors grew a part of their platform after their books came out:
