5 things you should be doing to build an author platform

Before you can become a successful writer you need to take a lot of things into consideration. You can't write a book and immediately become the next J K Rowling or Stephen King. You need to work hard building yourself a author platform, here are a couple of things you can consider.

1. Do all the research you possibly can. You can randomly decide one day that you want to become a writer but the key to being successful is to research. You want to make sure that you have a basic writing knowledge, how to go about market yourself, the pros and cons of self publishing verses traditional publishing. This should always be your first step in anything you want to do correctly.

2. Make yourself a Twitter page for your author platform. You can opt to go big on other platforms and in fact I encourage you to have as many social media platforms as possible. There are good and bad things about all social medias but Twitter is by far the social media that you can grow quickly from to be a writer. When I first started researching how to be successful all the tips were to make a Twitter page ASAP and start to build a following.

The reason you need to have a following on social media is because no matter which way you decide to publish your work, you will need to market yourself. The sooner you get a place for marketing the better because slow will come slowly at first. Remember with growing a platform that consistency is key.

3. Publish work somewhere so you can show people your work if they want examples. This could be on a website like Vocal, Medium or WattPad. There are also chances to make money from publishing writing. I would recommend entering writing contests, as many as possible, as you might get a review for your work.

4. Start a blog! I know this is a rather hard thing to do and you could do this as a way to money (just remember that it's not easy to make money quickly from blogging) or you could just do it for fun. It's a great way to get traffic if you start a blog after you have somewhat built a platform on social media because you can simply post your blog link with a few hashtags. A blog will be slow progress but the more you stick in and be consistent with the uploads the better.

5. Start a YouTube channel! This is quite a hard thing to hear as an introvert but if you have the confidence to put yourself out there you should give it ago. It is also one of the more expensive things to try out especially considering how it might not go anywhere fast. You need a camera, editing software and multiple other things to make a good channel but if it works out it could be a brilliant asset to help you grow your platform in the end.

The thing to remember about all of these tips is that most of all consistency matters above all else. It's very daunting to hear that you may need to be present daily if you, like me, have a full time job. But truly if you want to make it you need to put in the hours and make a place for yourself. I'm routing for you and hope you find nothing but success in your dreams.