In the digital age, online popularity is almost more valued than the flesh and bone sort, and in the writing space it often feels like not just an aspiration but a requirement for success.
No doubt you’ve seen some people, generally authors in the query trenches, claiming that agents will only take on authors who have a substantial platform. This is, as you hopefully already know, made up and wrong (at least in the trad pub fiction space). But our yearning for internet clout remains, and plenty authors have done their best to find a way to build themselves a little community. And more power to them!
I write this post today not so much to tell you whether you should or should not try to build a platform, since that’s a personal choice, but rather to encourage you to be thoughtful about why, where, and how you build it.
The Why
Here’s a little anecdote for you, courtesy of my dad. He used to work in television, you see, and at one point he was having a conversation with a news anchor or some such. This guy was expressing some frustration about his job and the recognition (or lack thereof) he got from the wider public, and my dad simply said, “Let me ask you an honest question: is your goal to tell the news…or is it to be famous?” To which the guy blinked, thought about it, and said, “You know, I think I just want to be famous.”
Eureka! Here was the guy’s issue—nobody gets into the news anchor game if they’re hoping to be the next cast member on Keeping Up With The Kardashians. To note, there was nothing wrong about this guy’s aspiration. Fame for fame’s sake is something lots of people want and take steps to achieve. But when that’s the goal, reading out the Monday night news might not be your ticket to the big time.
I tell you this because why you want to build a platform online is the first step in figuring out how you’re going to do it. Do you want other writers to think you’re cool, or do you want to reach a target audience of potential readers? Do you just generally want a lot of followers for follower’s sake? There’s no wrong answer, but I do think you should have an answer.
The Where
Twitter is a terrible hellsite with a dumb new name I refuse to use. It’s been terrible for a long time and only gets more terrible every day, but it’s also the website that much of the publishing world has carved out a space in. That space might be on shaky ground in the last few years (hellsite, remember) but publishing has never been known for it’s adaptability, so Twitter it shall be for the foreseeable future.
It’s a great place to meet other writers, especially querying writers, and to get a read on some agents and other publishing professionals, particularly those who are maybe just starting out and actively building their lists. But, well, is it a good place to reach readers? Almost certainly not. And the content of a platform you might build on Twitter is going to be pretty different from the content of your TikTok page. At least, in my opinion, it ought to be.
Instagram and TikTok are better places to stake a claim if you’re writing YA or Adult, especially Romance. YouTube used to be a viable option, but I personally find that’s less true now than it was a few years ago. Facebook might be a good spot for you if you’re writing for an older audience, but YA writers like myself really have no business being on there. Tumblr might still be good for sharing poetry or short fiction, but I jumped off that ship in the 2010s and haven’t looked back since.
I work in marketing and social media for my day job, but you don’t really need that kind of background to get the idea. Each social media site has it’s own culture, priorities, algorithms, and audience, and you can usually guess by vibes alone where your niche might be.
The How…Or The How Not
Hopefully you’ve stuck with me so far, because we’ve reached the main point of this post. Or at least, the reason I sat down to write it.
I’m obviously not here to give you the secret to massive success. Reader, I’ve got like 500 Twitter followers to my name and my other social media platforms are equally lackluster. Many of the thoughts in this post have come from me trying to work out my own relationship with platform—if I want it at all, and if so, how to get it—in the last few months.
What I can do, though, is remind you to be thoughtful about the how. The internet is an inflammatory place. I can’t promise you anything about online success except for one universally acknowledged truth: it pays to be a pest.
Negativity gets more engagement then positivity. We love to hear about why something is Bad, Actually, whether we agree with the take or not. To that end, I’ve witnessed people rise to fame by having Hot Takes about literally everything and delighting in the engagement that pours in. Meanwhile, those posts immediately find their way into group chats and even professional spaces where a thriving whisper network rolls its all-seeing-eye.
Now, personally? I don’t think the engagement is worth it. In the last couple years we’ve seen enough big names in the writing community crash and burn, some for pettiness and others for flagrant unprofessionalism, lying, and far worse. However, many of these folks got big precisely because they were mean and proud of it. Like that newscaster with dreams of fame (wonder what he’s up to now) they prioritized bitterness and anger and tried to pass it off as righteousness and honesty, because nothing rakes in the follows like telling the internet that you are Mad about something and anyone with morals or a brain should be Mad about it, too.
It’s a great way to get followers and likes. It’s a great way to position oneself as an authority in their profession, and a morally superior one to boot. But does that translate into the kind of platform that can further your presence beyond your ego? I’m not sure it does.
Is It Worth It?
Sometimes I wonder whether platform matters at all, and even if it does, if the pros outweigh the cons. Personally, I don’t think the kind of platform I want to have is the kind that inspires swaths of followers. I don’t care much for being famous…I’d rather tell the news. Well—okay, not actually tell the news (reading off a teleprompter going at lightning speed LIVE ON TELEVISION? No thank you) but you get the metaphor.
I dream of one day being so successful that I don’t have to worry about the internet at all and I can just curl into a very small ball with only a laptop and a tumbler of iced coffee the size of my thigh and write books, sliding manuscripts into my agent’s inbox in the dead of night like some kind of Banksy wannabe. Wishful thinking? Absolutely. But a girl can dream.
Your dream, though, might be different, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I don’t much care if other writers think I’m cool and hip, but for some, that’s a huge part of why they write. They don’t just want readers to like their books, they want other writers to respect them. You’d think these goals are one in the same, but when it comes to how you operate a platform, they manifest in entirely different ways.
I haven’t figured out exactly what I want my platform to look like yet. I have ideas, sure, but for the most part I’m just taking it a day at a time. This substack, of course, is part of it, as is my meager following online. Beyond that? We’ll see.
If you were hoping this post would be a how-to for platform, I’m sorry to disappoint. Rather, I guess I’m hoping it offered you an invitation to consider your own relationship with platform and what (if anything) you want out of your presence online. As an author, as a professional, or just as a human being.
If you do have a genuine how-to for running platform, though…gimme. I could use the help.