Building Your Platform Before You Have a Book Deal

I was asked recently how authors can build their platforms before they have a book deal. It’s a question I’m happy to answer, because I’ve seen over and over again that basing a platform on a book release alone is unsustainable. Why? Lots of reasons:

• The hype around the book release is finite, so the author runs out of things to talk about.
• The book’s expertise cannot change and grow over time the way its author’s can.
• The book doesn’t have its own personality that audiences can connect with.
• When the author moves on to their next project, they have to figure out how to either transition their platform from one book to another or build a whole new platform for the new book.

When you start crafting your platform early, you can develop a public identity that complements your eventual book announcement without being subsumed by it. However, you should take some time to think about what form you want that public identity to take. Will it be based around your personality? Your expertise? The story world you’re building? Let’s look at some examples:

Personality Platforms

YA and (more recently) nonfiction author John Green originally built an online platform around himself as a person by exchanging regular vlogs with his brother on YouTube. The videos addressed any subject that interested the two of them and developed a large following of viewers who enjoyed having a parasocial relationship with them.

Pros: Because John himself was the attraction for his early viewers, he has been able to carry his audience’s attention to a wide range of projects rather than limiting himself to a single niche. He can also easily maintain interest between book releases.

Cons: This kind of cult of personality demands a lot of regular emotional labour from the author. They have to be mindful about their privacy and how much they’re willing to share about their lives, and they risk alienating readers if they speak carelessly on controversial issues.

How to Establish a Personality-Based Platform

This kind of platform thrives on personal blogs/vlogs, personal newsletters, and social media. Authors who pursue it should deliberately choose which social media apps they will use for their public persona and which ones will be accessible only to friends and family.

If you’re going this route, don’t stretch yourself too thinly across many apps. Instead, choose the ones that feel the most sustainable to you based on your strengths and preferences. Note that you don’t have to be a solo act on all your platforms; you might, for example, be a co-host on a podcast or a collaborator on videos.

To figure out which social media apps are the best fit for you, jump to social media overview section.

Authority Platforms

Authors who don’t want to maintain a personality-based platform often build one around sharing their expertise. This is particularly relevant to nonfiction authors, but fiction authors with a skill that is relevant to their audience can also build their brand this way:

Gabrielle Cerberville built a reputation for expertise as a forager and foraging educator through in-person workshops and events (building strong authority) as well as educational short videos online (growing a widespread following). When publishers approached her about writing a field guide, she was able to successfully counter with a pitch for an unusual memoir-cookbook-guided mindfulness hybrid.

Fantasy author K.M. Weiland started a podcast and blog about writing craft and story theory that has attracted a large following of aspiring authors, and she now sells books on craft as well as her fiction writing. Note that if you are a fiction author who follows this path, you may likewise get pulled more into nonfiction writing on writing craft, rather than focusing exclusively on your own stories.

Christy Wilhelmi of Gardenerdhas built a website, online courses, and services for organic gardeners…who are also a perfect audience for both her nonfiction gardening books and her fiction books that centre on a community garden.

Pros: For nonfiction authors, it is easy to show publishers that audiences who follow them for their niche expertise will be interested in a book on that subject matter. Furthermore, this type of platform offers more privacy than the previous one. It also offers a wider variety of monetization options, since authors can create or secure paid opportunities to teach and present about their subject matter, not just about their literary experience.

Cons: An author who builds their platform around a specific subject will find it harder to bring their audience along if they shift their focus to another one. Also, in order to carry the authority needed for this type of platform, they must work diligently to become—and remain—a well-rounded expert on the subject matter.

How to Establish an Authority Platform

Brainstorm the kind of content you’d be comfortable making that will help people learn more about your subject area. You have a great opportunity to create “evergreen” content—that is, the kind of content that people will continue to search for in order to learn a skill or to seek information. TikTok, YouTube, and Pinterest are all habitually treated as search engines in this way. Writing a well-researched blog and using any of those platforms to amplify your posts is a good strategy, as is maintaining a newsletter.

With an authority platform, remember that people are coming to you for information that will improve their lives in some way. You can occasionally create self-promotional content, but try to centre your audience members as much as possible. If you’re selling a book, start by telling them why it will benefit them, not by asking them to support you.

Serial and Worldbuilding Platforms

Once upon a time, authors like Charles Dickens created serial novels that were published chapter by chapter in magazines and newspapers, then later compiled into books. Frequently, a short story published in a magazine or literary journal has blossomed into a full novel later in the author’s career. This millennium, some hobbyists posting serially to fanfiction or writing sites have gained enough experience and interest to launch themselves as traditionally published authors. Most recently, serial one-person dramas on short-video platforms have generated enough interest that creators like C.M. Alongi, Jill Bearup, and The Dad Who Lived have been able to adapt their worlds and characters into novels.

Pros: For fiction authors, this is one of the most surefire ways to interest an audience in a specific book, since they have already fallen in love with the world and its characters. It’s also a safer bet for building a large audience of readers in your genre than a personality-based platform.

Cons: Creating serial video dramas requires skills in editing and acting, and is time consuming enough that many creators who do it successfully need enough monetization to quit their day jobs. For the best chance of audience growth and retention, all types of serial content require regularity in the delivery of new content. There may also sometimes (but not always) be disadvantages due to how the writer’s skills and interests changes as time progresses.

How to Build a Serial/Worldbuilding Platform

Choose your strategy according to which type of platform interests you the most and what kind of audience will help you reach your goals. Do you want to develop your audiovisual skills? Do you like acting? Then, provided you have the time to produce and edit short videos regularly, short-video platforms will be a great option for you. If you want to focus exclusively on writing craft—and particularly if you plan to self-publish (it’s a rare project that makes it from A03 to a book deal)—then posting chapters online can gain you experience and, potentially, a following of rapacious readers who value direct access to an author more than the polish of traditional publishing.

Planning a Content Calendar

One of the biggest sources of overwhelm when starting to create content for your platform is simply not knowing what to create. For best success, choose a frequency you can stick to (e.g. newsletters twice a month, short videos once a day, etc.) and plan a content calendar. Write down your target dates for the next six to twelve months, then spend a day brainstorming content you can produce for each of those dates. You don’t have to stick to this plan exactly (I certainly don’t!), but having the list of ideas will keep you from floundering.

Where to Build Your Author Platform

Not all audience development happens online! For advice on building a platform offline or via newsletter, check out this post. To identify which online venues are right for you, keep reading.

Blogging

Choose this if you want to own your own online space where you can disseminate content, host a shop, link to a newsletter, and embed just about any other kind of online content. You’ll need to learn how to use and customize your blog template and you’ll need to post robust, well articulated content that provides value of some kind to your reader, whether that’s interest in your personal life and news, information about your subject matter, or insights into your fictional world.

Video Streaming (Twitch, YouTube Live, TikTok Live, Instagram Live)

Choose this if you can regularly show up for at least thirty minutes and speak the whole time without notes. No video editing is required, and you don’t have to consider the long-term relevance of the content.

Long-Form Video (YouTube)

Choose this if you want to create high-value evergreen content for education or entertainment on a schedule of your choice. You will need to be able to speak without obviously reading a script, and you’ll have to edit the finished product, but you don’t necessarily have to show your face if you can provide other engaging visuals.

Short-Form Video (TikTok, Instagram, YouTube Shorts)

Choose this if you can create frequent videos of 60–90 seconds (posting daily is recommended for growth). For best results, begin each video with a strong hook, edit out pauses, and use built-in tools for adding captions. Showing your face will increase engagement, but some users speak through an avatar if they really aren’t comfortable with that.

Podcasting

Choose this if you can think of a lot to say on a particular topic or in a particular genre. Fiction podcasts can be read (e.g. audio plays and stories), but other kinds do better if they aren’t scripted. While some podcasters release unedited audio, a more polished podcast will see more growth.

Text and Photo Posts (Bluesky, X, LinkedIn, Mastodon, etc.)

Choose this if you are most energized by engaging in online communities through sharing your knowledge and opinions and responding to the knowledge and opinions of others. You can enter existing communities or create communities of your own centred around your work or your expertise. Just be sure to keep the community members’ interests front and centre; don’t post frequent self-promotion that doesn’t benefit them, and don’t expect results from posting into the void without engaging directly with real people.

You CAN Build a Sustainable Author Platform

While it might sound overwhelming, if you play to your own strengths, avoid platforms that exhaust you, and choose a schedule that fits your life, building an author platform can become a natural part of your writing career. If you aren’t sure how to translate building this audience into getting book sales, check out the post “How Not to Hate Marketing Your Book”.  If you’re still working on pinpointing exactly who that audience is, try “Stop Guessing Your Readership’s Needs: Build Your Ideal Reader Avatar”.