Six Unspoken Benefits of an Author Platform

I'm having a quiet morning here, looking forward to sharing this episode with you, and talking about a topic that I've covered actually sort of before, um, and that's the unintended, unexpected benefits of building an author platform.

In episode 393, I talked about how our author platforms are not just a follower count.

So if you wanna head back to that episode and, uh, you can tune in there, and I talked a little bit about how this platform isn't just about counting followers.

And then in episode 395, I listed 25 unexpected benefits of writing a cookbook.

And I think sometimes we get so focused on the goal, the cookbook, the platform, that we s- fail to really stop and slow down to see the benefits for ourselves and for our readers of doing something, and who we become in the process of doing something like building an author platform.

So just as a little bit of a, um, update, the platform, and when we hear the word platform, we usually always think about publishers and agents.

We think about follower counts, we think about social media growth, we think about email lists, we think about visibility, and we just feel so blah, like there's so much I have to do to please this publisher so they offer me a book deal.

And today, while that is true, publishers do love platforms.

I think we often, if we want to get a book deal, have been thinking about this and asking the wrong question, because the real issue isn't whether or not your platform is big enough.

The real issue is whether or not your platform has just been reduced to a measurement for a publisher, or are we actually looking at a platform as a way to grow relationships with readers over time? That's what a platform is.

It is evidence of relationships with readers, and if I think about my own experience of becoming a cookbook author for the first time, when I got my first book deal, this was actually before social media really became what it was today.

So if platforms were really all about social media, how is it possible that people wrote books even before social media existed? Before there were reels, content strategies, and pressure to feel like you have to perform to become a personal brand online, yet we all still had author platforms.

And the thing was, as I was teaching cooking classes, I was writing for a local newspaper, I was sharing my ideas, I was building relationships, I was showing up, I was being consistent, I was writing, I was listening to what my readers said, and in my work and in my conversations, I reflected that.

I just didn't really have the way to actually think about it as a platform.

But looking back, I wanted to let you know that I realized something, that I wasn't doing this platform at the time for a publisher.

It was just something that I was doing in my life to help people.

So we need...

The, the biggest shift has been is that social media is now very visible.

Video and photography are ways that people are becoming visible online, and a lot of times when people are consuming content online, it's often video-based or audio-based, like you might be listening to this, uh, podcast, um, while you're walking or driving or cooking.

But we listen to people talk, we watch people do things on video.

But a platform for you as a writer and an author can take other forms.