Your Writer Platform

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How to Build Your Author Platform: A Simple Guide

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Struggling to establish your online presence and connect with your readers? 

Building a strong author platform can be the key to your success in today’s digital age.

And although it takes time and consistent effort, growing a platform and community around your writing is worth the trouble.

In this article, I’ll walk you through how to build your author platform step-by-step.

But before we dive into the nitty-gritty of building your author platform, let’s first understand what it is and why it’s crucial for your success as an author.

Your author platform is the presence you create (both online and off) to promote yourself and your work. It encompasses everything from your website to your social media profiles, email list, and other channels that you use to interact and engage with your ideal readers.

Why is it essential to have an author platform? Well, having a strong author platform can help you:

  • Connect with your audience and build a loyal following
  • Establish yourself as an authority in your niche
  • Increase your visibility and reach more readers
  • Sell more books and generate more revenue

So, how can you build a strong author platform? Let’s find out.

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Elevate Your Author Brand: How to Conduct a Thorough Platform & Brand Audit

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Your online presence and personal brand are crucial aspects of building a successful career.

Your website, social media accounts, content, and personal brand all contribute to your overall “author platform” and can make or break your ability to connect with readers, gain visibility, and sell books.

But how do you know if your author platform and brand strategy are working for you?

The answer? By conducting a thorough audit.

In this post, I’ll walk you through the process of conducting an author platform and brand audit – including a comprehensive checklist to help you evaluate where you are now (so you can get to where you want to be).

Note: If you’d like to work together to conduct a platform and brand audit for your author business, click here to get all the details.

Website Audit

The first step in conducting an author platform audit is to evaluate your website. Your website is the hub of your online presence, and it’s important that it accurately reflects your brand and provides a positive experience for your readers.

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8 Marketing Strategies for Self-Publishing Authors that Get Results

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In this post, guest author Helene Cue covers eight of the most effective marketing strategies for self-publishing authors to help you finally get some results and grow your writing career.

If you want to become a successful self-published author, you need to have both a talent for writing as well as some practical marketing skills. You must know (or must learn) how to present your books to your audience in a way that makes them sit up and take notice.

Got the writing talent, but lack a background in marketing? No worries! If you genuinely want to become self-published, you can quickly learn basic marketing strategies and start using them to promote your work and your author brand. 

Here are eight powerful marketing strategies you can start implementing today.

1 // Identify Your Ideal Reader 

If you want to promote your book effectively, start with a clear understanding of who your target audience is.

Identifying your ideal reader is an essential step in developing a marketing plan. How do you describe your readers? Who are they?

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Best Practices for Authors Looking to Optimize Their Marketing Strategy

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Best Practices for Authors Looking to Optimize Their Marketing Strategy | YourWriterPlatform.com

Ilan Nass and his company have consistently helped businesses launch, track, and improve their social media marketing and ad campaigns. In this guest post, he’ll share his expertise and social strategies, outlining simple ways authors can optimize their marketing strategy to grow their network and increase book sales.

It’s an unfortunate truth that writing a good book doesn’t guarantee an author’s success.

With so many others vying for readers’ attention, it’s important to implement an effective marketing strategy. Various brands rely on best practices instilled by a Facebook advertising specialist or Instagram expert to promote their products, and authors may consider doing the same to attract a broader audience.

However, if hiring a professional is not currently in the budget, the onus is on authors to understand which marketing channels are available, and which will fit best with their marketing objectives.

Popular options include various social media platforms, a website, and email marketing. The tips here will help you sell more books by explaining how to independently optimize each channel.

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Advertising Your Books on Facebook & Instagram: 5 Actionable Tips for Authors

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Advertising Your Books on Facebook & Instagram_ 5 Actionable Tips for Authors _ YourWriterPlatform.com
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If you’re interested in ways to manage your Facebook ads more efficiently, you’re in luck. The following post is by Ricardo Fayet, one of the founders of Reedsy* (a network of world-class publishing professionals that provide authors access to a diverse roster of talented editors, designers, marketers, and ghostwriters). Ricardo walks us through five key ways to implement Facebook and Instagram ads that get results.

While Facebook ads for authors are becoming increasingly competitive as more and more independent authors make use of them (and target the same audiences), they are still one of the best avenues to market a book.

Since Facebook has data about pretty much anyone out there, their advertising platform makes it easy for any author — no matter how niche their books are — to find their audience and serve ads to their readers directly in their Facebook or Instagram feeds. More importantly, ads are relatively cheap to test: you can get started with $5 a day and see results.

The only issue is, Facebook’s Ad Manager has become quite a complex interface, which changes almost every month as Facebook rolls out new features and possibilities. While these are generally a good thing for experienced advertisers, they make the learning curve even steeper for authors looking to get in the game.

In this post, I’ll help you cut some steps in the learning curve by giving you five actionable tips you can implement right away — whether that’s to improve the results of your existing campaigns, or to set up your first one!

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