Building an Author Platform

The Author’s Ultimate Tool

Until about New Year 2020, I took care of my author platform assiduously. Decisions were always made with reference to it, and I pampered it with fresh content every single day.

I had all the social media sites too, but my pride and joy was my blog, which I had started in 2013, a year after I published my first book, because that already had its own website.

Anyway, I attacked the problem of not having an author platform with my usual zeal, and I was writing an article a day for the blog. That level of activity was bringing me in about 10,000 unique visitors per month, who made about 30,000 visits and read about 250,000 pages.

Every month…

My Author Platform

I was proud of it as I am a one-man band.

I could sell advertising space. In fact, people regularly approached me with offers without my having to advertise.

Then came the fateful date of January 2020.

I had a brainwave, put it into practice, and within months, I had increased my earnings ten-fold. It was going so well that I took on a couple of virtual assistants to help me. I hadn’t written a book at that time for several years, because I needed to make money, and my existing books just weren’t making it.

However, now that the money was flowing, I could return to writing.

Three months later, Facebook had banned my blog for spamming, and Audible had de-listed my most popular twenty-odd audiobooks for ‘fraudulent activity’.

How or why has never been explained to me despite scores of emails to Audible.

So, with my writing life in tatters, I returned to my blog.

I had not kept up my previous level of activity, and so, as I ignored my blog, unbeknownst to me, it had sunk to the level where it no longer showed up in search results… At least, not in the first ten pages, whereas it had been on Google page one.

OK, I have books now, but otherwise, to all intents and purposes, I am having to start again with my author platform.

Keep On Top of Things!

Let it be a lesson to you.

No matter how much things seem to change in your favour, do not ignore what you already have… the very things that gave you the leg up in the first place, because if you take your eye off the ball, well-meaning employees can screw things up for you, and you can even do it for yourself 🙁

When you are steaming full ahead chasing the money, be sure that you are not destroying the foundations of your business with the wake like I did.

Owen Jones

Our sister blog: The Amiable Dragon