As I view the coming year of BABS meetings under the umbrella of “Authors Go Public,” I keep hearing this little message in my head. “It’s a reader platform.” Readers are as unique and eccentric as you, dear author, so making the transition to see your outreach efforts (your blog, your Goodreads presence, your Shelfari friends and your book extras, all of that) as a Reader Platform is the most succinct advice I can offer.

READER PLATFORM?

What does it mean? It means you’re circling around your reader, knowing where they hang out and what they say to their friends. It means you spend more time understanding them than you do talking about yourself. So you built an author platform, didja? Who cares? We’ve all got one of those.

A reader platform should be a big love-fest. Somehow, you’ve got to find your own way of connecting with your readership and growing that into a fertile, active playground.

Publishing these days is certainly author-centric, to use a phrase I hear from Anne Hill. And that’s a good thing. An astoundingly good thing. But your outreach — your platform — better be reader-centric. Because that’s all you’ve got going forward.

Read more in Anne’s new ebook: Three Steps to Selling Your eBook.

Learn what happened in 2011 and what authors are doing with it in my ebook: Indie Authors in the Publishing Sea-Change

Get your Kindle series rolling with Beyond Bestseller Part One

 

 

 

Suzanna Stinnett

Follow me on Twitter: Brainmaker

Visit my Shelfari page: Suzanna Stinnett