Okay, confession time: Here at Books & Such I’m known as the platform denier. The platform skeptic. Card-carrying member of the Book Marketing Flat Earth Society. Yes, I know that an author’s platform can be a powerful thing, but just because it has worked for some (Duck Dynasty, Joanna Gaines, for instance) doesn’t mean it will work for all. And it cannot be quantified as some publishers are wont to do.
Take this article from Fox Digital from a few years back. Beauty vloggers are known to be style-setters and mega product movers. This angry young Instagram sensation blamed her viewers for the fact that she was not able to sell the requisite 36 t-shirts to her 2.6 million subscribers. She couldn’t get .000014% of her loyal audience to fork over a few bucks! Yet she has a platform that would make most publishers drool.
I’m constantly pondering the question, do those who follow an author on social media buy books? I’m thinking that some do and some don’t. If most of your followers are in the publishing industry or fellow authors, they are not likely to buy your books. If your followers are there because you post wonderful memes, chances are they prefer collecting great one-liners instead of great books. If your persona on social media is all about crafting, and you publish a novel, you’ll have an uphill climb to convert them to book buyers. If you give all your content away for free on social media, why would anyone pay for it? 
What makes a valuable platform?
- A life well-lived, shared transparently on social media. Followers tend to be strongly invested in those who do this well. A great example of this is The Frey Life. They are a young You Tube couple. The husband is a pastor and the wife battles Cystic Fibrosis. They started their blog to raise awareness for this disease, but it has morphed into so much more. They don’t talk about their faith to their 260,000 subscribers, they just live it. Check out the engagement in the comments. Their “merch” sales (merchandise) have been staggering. They don’t post as much lately since they adopted a child and became foster parents but the very second they post, their community jumps onboard.
- A well-crafted brand that extends seamlessly to your books. Take someone like Pioneer Woman. Her books and her brand are perfectly aligned, and her books add to what she shares on television and social media instead of duplicating.
- Meeting a felt need in social media and continuing to meet that need in a book that extends that help–not just rehashes what you’ve already shared on social media.
- A vigorous speaking platform, especially when you collect attendees’ names and email addresses and add them to your database for newsletters and e-blasts. Those are the people who gave up time and traveled to hear what you have to say. They may have even paid for the opportunity. Don’t let them get away without adding them to your tribe. I discussed this in depth here and in that article you’ll find links to other articles with even more ideas.
- We could go on and on, but can you see it’s not the gross number of instagram followers you have?
How does one demonstrate engagement?
- Significant engagement shows through comments. When your social media is a conversation, with you taking part, your subscribers are more likely to buy in.
- The names and email addresses you are able to collect for your personal database are your people, THE most valuable asset an author can have..—When a follower gives you his name and/or address, it demonstrates serious engagement. And you can contact those followers each time a new book launches or if you are going to be speaking or doing a book signing in their area. Let me repeat: If I were to choose the most important engagement asset an author has, it would be a strong list of email subscribers.
- If you have a Patreon community (where your avid followers pay anywhere from $2 – $50 per month for extra content and even a call with you) that helps to quantify committed influencers.
- If your social media site sells a serious amount of “merch,” that’s a great indication of how willing followers are to fork out money for content. Check out Zak George Dog Training Revolution on You Tube, to see someone using sponsorships, Patreon and “merch” to the max.
Of course there are authors who had no name recognition, no platform at all when they started, like Ann Voskamp or Sarah Young, author of Jesus Calling. So when editors shy away from someone because of a modest platform or get starry-eyed because of amazing numbers, I can’t help but roll my eyes. Sometimes miracles happen.
How about you? Do you have any thoughts about the importance of platform? Or the fact that I may be the only Platform Denier in the whole industry?
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In blog: ID 214984479 | Platform © Ratz Attila | Dreamstime.com
An Agent on the Fence: What’s the Tipping Point?
I won’t sell a lot of merch;
none at all, that is my pledge,
for that would undermine my perch
of talking people off the edge
of loss of faith and loss of hope
when they’ve come to me and cried,
at the tag end of their rope,
thinking thoughts of suicide.
I didn’t look for ministry,
just tried to write what I found true,
but I guess it sure found me,
and that’s why I’m telling you
that life and death is not the time
to think about the bottom line.
Wendy, I’m smiling reading your rant. My husband and I were just discussing yesterday whether people big into social media actually read BOOKS. I have a modest blog site that is seven years old. I have a little over 200 regular followers. I don’t Facebook, X, Blue sky, Instagram, etc. I only have the blog where I post roughly monthly. My fifth novel comes out in May. My publisher is pleased with my sales and so am I. Of course, this is my second career and I still eat no matter how many books I sell. The local Barnes and Noble stocks my books and hosts my signings. If you’re a Flat Earther, I’m right there with you.
Wendy, oh how you did my heart good this morning! I literally could feel your encouragement inside.
I have an adult son who is involved in marketing. We discussed my manuscript and I bombarded the poor boy about all things platform building. His remark truly surprised me. “Mom, it seems like the writing world expects authors to have a degree in marketing.” His seemingly innocent comment resonated with my internal fear that I might end up being more of a marketer than a writer. I’m also new to all of this so I don’t know what I don’t know. However, I refuse to be ruled by fear, so I intend to master this business aspect while keeping the reader in mind as my number one priority.
My concern is that I don’t want my writing to be merely an extension of marketing. Each day, I remind my inner twelve-year-old girl, who scribbled poems and stories backwards in her journal, that one day she would share her voice because people needed to hear her story. I also reassured her that despite having dyslexia, she would also learn to write forwards. 🙂
Vicki Crumpton, now retired from Revel, was a regular on the faculty of the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference (BRMCWC) for many years. She always maintained the most important component of social media was a major email correspondence. I appreciated your comment that writers tend not to buy books. Writers need to learn the word “reciprocate” and act on it. There’s an adage, to have a friend you must be a friend. That can apply to writers who expect other writers to purchase and review books but don’t do the same. I have a new Regency (1815) novel, An Independent Woman. This is the first time I worked up enough courage to ask some fellow Regency writers to read a watermarked copy and post a review on launch day. They made me feel I was imposing on them, even though, without exception, I subscribe to their newsletters, buy all their books, and post reviews on multiple sources. They have bought none of mine. Perhaps you will consider writing a blog on reciprocation.
I loved this! Thank you. I get tired of being asked how many “followers” I have. It makes me cringe. I don’t write to be discovered! I write to help others discover! Following me is all I have to offer, so I don’t leave the reader with anything.
It was refreshing to read this. Email is my favorite way to interact with readers. It’s so much more personal. I use some of their words on social media with their permission, but they bless me by trusting me with their story.
Thank you for these encouraging words!
While I’ve worked hard to grow my numbers over the last seven or more years (about 35,000 now with 9,000+ e-list and 26,000 social numbers), what I’m sensing is that while those numbers can help in getting traditional contracts, the more important factor for sales is FELT NEED. Someone won’t buy a book unless she feels she needs that product (and that can include those generous author friends who want to support what I do).
And yes, I am spending a lot of money monthly buying my writer friends’ books and promoting many of those in my monthly mini-magazine Looking Up! (many of the ideas for which I got from you, Wendy . . . thank you!).
This is refreshing. I wish more agents and publishers thought this way.
I wonder even about email lists, though. I agree that those who sign up for emails and newsletters are going to be ardent supporters. But I read avidly, 70+ books an year, yet I am on very few email lists. I just don’t need the extra stuff in my inbox. I somehow still manage to find out when my favorite authors are publishing something new. This makes me wonder if coming up with material for email or a newsletter is worth the time. I get good interaction on my blog, but very little on Facebook, X, or Instagram.
Wendy, it’s comforting to read that you share some of my doubts about platform. I can’t quite see where the role of social-media influencer fits into the biblical scheme of life. Maybe I’m atypical here, but I’m often unmoved by the email newsletters from friends and writers I otherwise love … and those are ones I actually read (not to be confused with the ones I intend to read but wind up deleting weeks later). Mostly, it’s the nudge of the Spirit that drives me to read the right book at the right time — and He doesn’t use email, subscribe to my blog or follow me on Facebook.
This view reminds of the time long ago when I was agonizing over creating a tag line for my writing life. A well-known editor for one of the major Christian publishers told me to relax. “Unless you have a plan that will make your tag line as recognizable as ‘Can you hear me now?’, a tag line is unnecessary. Your NAME is what’s important.”
I do see the point of a platform for non-fiction writers. After all, what publisher wouldn’t love having the writer do a lot of the marketing work before they publish a book about some timely topic. But novelists? For both, I’d really like to see the statistical proof that links platform with book sales. For the average author, I doubt such a link can be shown.
Wendy, your perspective is ahead of its time! More and more, I’m hearing others say what you have–a dynamic email list is the foundation to any platform. Social Media, if it doesn’t point readers to your email list, is just a time-suck. You don’t even own it; consequently, it–and all your followers–can be snatched out from under you overnight. Thanks for standing up for the truth! 🙂