Member-only story
Writing Tips: Your Author Platform
Author platform. The words strike fear and trembling into the hearts of many a writer. Because, what is an author platform, anyway? Is it all about how many social media likes you can gather? What all should it include? And how important is your author platform in the world of publishing?
This past weekend I attended a panel on the subject at AWP, the humongous writing conference that was held in Portland, my hometown. I got some interesting perspectives on the topic that I’ll share with you here.
The panel was made up of two literary agents, an editor, and an author. The tips I gleaned here are from the two agents: Amanda Annis, from Trident Media Group, and Erin Harris, from Folio Lit (which happens to be my agency, though Erin is not my agent).
The panel debunked a couple of my ideas about platform, most notably that the only good platform is the one that has incredibly high social media numbers. Publishers, it seems, have discovered that having several hundred thousand followers on Twitter does not sell books. Another false idea I had was that platform is comprised…
