Have you ever applied to one of those jobs that require experience, but that you can’t gain experience for because they all require experience?

That’s basically how an author platform works.

In order to get published, you need a strong author platform. But in order to create a strong author platform, you need to be published.

It’s a classic (and maddening) catch-22.

But there are some things you can do now as an unpublished author to create the beginnings of an author platform. Beginnings that will show agents and publishers that you have the potential to sell a lot of books, even if you haven’t sold one yet.

Here are seven things you can start working on right now to build the framework for what will one day be the platform of a successful author.

What Is an Author Platform?

In the most basic terms, an author platform is your ability to reach your intended audience.

If you write in the nonfiction realm, this is fairly easy to establish. There are plenty of outlets for an oncologist who wrote a book on cancer to showcase her knowledge. A mother of five writing a book on child-rearing has a billion different blogs they can guest post on to foster a following.

But creating a platform as an unpublished fiction writer? This is a bit more difficult.

How does a fantasy writer showcase their expertise on something they made up? Or foster an audience for something that has yet to be published?

The trick to creating an author platform as a fiction writer is to focus on the quality of your prose more so than what it is about. If you can prove that people like to read what you write, then you are well on your way to establishing your author platform.

Now let’s talk about how, exactly, you do that.

7 Ways to Build Your Author Platform Before You Publish

Some of the best ways to build your platform as a fiction writer are to get awards for your work, get endorsements from best-selling authors, and show off your sales numbers on self-published books.

But if you haven’t published any books to be endorsed, awarded, or sold, there are still some things you can do to make yourself look more valuable to agents and publishers. Or, if you’re self-publishing, to attract potential customers.

Here are seven ways to build your pre-publishing author platform.

Social Media Accounts

Social media accounts are key to creating the beginnings of an author platform. But not just any social account will do.

That Facebook profile you made in high school? It will not earn you credit with a publishing house exec, no matter how many followers you have.

To start fostering potential readers, you’ll have to start anew with social accounts aimed at connecting you to your potential readers. Or, at the very least, connecting you with the writing world in general.

Which Social Platforms to Target

If starting and maintaining a bunch of social media accounts sounds daunting, start with just one. And make it a Twitter account.

I’ve talked before about why Twitter is the place to be as a writer. Those same facts also make it the place to be as a writer establishing a platform.

Create your new Twitter account with your author-face forward. Write your bio and choose a picture based on the idea that you are already a successful author. It’s that “fake it till you make it” thing.

If your social media profiles make you look like a published sci-fi writer, then you will attract the same following as a published sci-fi writer.

Who to Connect With and What to Post

Of course, you can’t expect everyone in your future audience to come to you. You must also reach out to find them. Search for and connect with fellow writers, industry professionals, and potential readers. All of these add credibility to your growing platform.

As far as what to post, try as much as possible to put your writing at center stage. This might include sharing excerpts from your book, posting fun flash fiction, or just commiserating with your fellow writers and readers about your experiences.

How much personalization you include (read: politics, baby pics, opinions, etc.) depends on your genre. If your dystopia is a scathing commentary on the dangers of kleptocracies, then feel free to get political. If you wrote a memoir on your struggles with fertility, then post the hell out of those baby pics.

On the other hand, if your young adult tale is just a simple story of childhood woes, then keep things on the professional side. Let people connect with the author behind the book, but not at the risk of alienating potential future readers.

Create Your Website

There are about a million options for building custom webpages these days, which means there is no reason not to have one. Even if you have no finished work to feature on it.

After social media, a website is the easiest way to make you more visible to the world. And it makes you look a lot more professional than a social media page can.

How to Create Your Own Website

Many authors opt to go with a free or bargain website option like Wix. While these types are great and super-easy to work with, they come with some drawbacks. Most notably, you don’t get your own domain name.

Nothing makes you look more professional than an address that is just your-name-dot-com. Certainly, if you can afford to own a domain like that, then you must already be famous! That’s what people think anyway…

The truth is, you can register most domains for about $24 a year. Less than the royalties from a handful of book sales. And totally worth it to impress the perfect agent.

And don’t worry about paying someone to build you a site. Your author site (for now anyway) will be very simple. The templates available for creating sites these days are so easy to use, even the least tech-savvy person could have a new site up in less than a day.

My personal recommendation for site-building is WordPress. I have built multiple sites for myself and for clients using their templates and have never been disappointed.

You will also need hosting for your site if you opt for a customized domain. For this, I recommend Bluehost. Easy to use, inexpensive, and great customer service.

What to Feature on Your Site

So what do you put on your author website when you have nothing published?

Start with a biography about yourself. Be sure to mention anything pertaining to writing (education, contests you’ve placed in, any minor publishing accomplishments, etc.) But also give your future readers a good sense of who you are as a person.

The bio is a great place to showcase your voice and writing style, as well. If your book is quirky, be quirky. If it’s unsettling, be sure to play up your obsession with cutting the heads off dolls.

Next, you’ll want to showcase what you’ve written, even if you are still technically writing it.

Give a quick blurb on any writing projects you’re working on. If you do have a polished piece, include an excerpt. If you enjoy creating flash fiction or short stories, type some up and post them as well.

Of course, link to any sites where your writing has been featured.

Beyond these two must-haves, you may also want to consider creating a blog page.

Create a Blog

A blog is a great way to bolster the amount of content on your website. It is also a way to establish a following before any of your fiction is published.

If you already have a site set up, adding a blog is simple. You’ll create new posts as often as you can and use your social media platforms to drive people into looking at them. Depending on what your blog is about, you can even use SEO tactics to get your post to appear in google searches–a great way to drive new visitors to your site.

What to Blog About

As someone who writes for a living, you might expect writing a blog to be a simple task. That is, until you realize you need to find a subject to write about.

Again, for nonfiction and memoir people, this is easy enough. You write about the thing you are an expert in or you write about your life.

For fiction writers, you’ll have to be much more creative to come up with a niche that will attract your book’s target audience (or any audience, for that matter).

Here are some common niches published and yet-to-be-published authors write about:

• Book reviews and commentary. By writing about other books in your genre you will attract readers that may someday buy your book.
• The struggles of writing fiction or advice on how to do it. This doesn’t target the same audience that your book will, but it is a great way to demonstrate your knowledge/familiarity with the craft of writing.
• A deep-dive into the world your book takes place in. This is a great option for sci-fi and fantasy writers. You can create short stories and backstories on the characters and setting of your book to get people excited to read it.
• A place to feature samples of your writing. If you write a lot of flash fiction, poetry, or other short-form pieces, a blog is the perfect place to feature them and gain fans.

Attend Writing Conferences

Writing conferences are a great way to learn more about the fiction craft. But they can also be a great way to broaden your writing circle.

Any conference will do for helping you learn, but you’ll want to target the big and prestigious ones as part of building your writing platform. I’m talking about Gotham Writers Conference, San Francisco Writers Conference, The Association of Writers and Writing Programs’ Annual Conference, and the like.

Highly exclusive conferences can bring you recognition and bolster your query letter regardless of how much schmoozing you do. But at most conferences, the key will be to make connections–both with other writers and industry professionals.

If you have a chance to sign up for an agent round table or critique session, do it! Even if you don’t get a direct request from the process, it will get you an introduction with someone who might help you down the road.

Take Writing Classes

Similar to writing conferences, writing classes can be a great way to build your author platform so long as you focus on the right ones.

Quality is key for any writing class, but being able to connect with industry professionals involved in the classes is equally important for the sake of building a platform. Many organizations host writing classes featuring best-sellers, agents, and publishers.

Large classes of this type will definitely improve your writing, but they likely won’t get you the direct introductions you need.

Instead, look for more exclusive opportunities.

Gotham Writers holds many online classes and free write-ins that offer the potential to meet some big names. Manuscript Academy offers classes and one-on-one critique sessions with agents.

These are just a couple of examples, and the list is always growing.

Publish Online Articles

The internet has become an endless anthology of articles. These articles span every possible topic imaginable. If you can write well and organize your thoughts, you can take advantage of this fact. (Believe me, I’ve made an entire career out of it!)

Many popular blogs, instructional sites, and even online magazines allow guest posts. This offers a great opportunity for you to publish without putting in a ton of work.

Most opportunities will be in the nonfiction realm and may not relate to your fiction work. But these articles will still showcase your writing abilities.

If you have any specific or unique experience (have you worked with children? Cut hair? Run a marathon? Owned an exotic pet?) there is a site out there that would love to publish your perspective piece.

A few online articles on some random sites won’t do a lot for your author platform, but they can’t hurt. And they can help you work toward getting articles on more relevant sites. And these will help you stand out in the eyes of an agent.

(Psst… The Write Prompt is always looking for wordsmiths to guest post. Whether you have a great writing prompt to share or an advice article, we’d love to feature you and help you establish some author credibility! Click here to learn more.)

Publish in Literary Magazines

Another option for publishing that makes it easier to show your prose skills, is getting a short-form piece spublished.

Unlike publishing a book the traditional route, which requires endless querying to land the attention of an agent or a small publishing house, getting a short story published can be relatively painless.

There are hundreds of online and printed mags that accept short-fiction submissions. Some even pay!

When an agent sees a note in your query letter saying that you’ve been published in The New Yorker, Barrelhouse, or The Georgia Review, they’ll sit up and take notice. Even less prestigious mags are worth mentioning, especially if you can list more than one.

Getting a short story published means that someone out there in a position of authority thought you were worth reading. That speaks volumes in the industry.

Plus, once you get your work in print, you officially become a published author. Which means, you officially get to start building a true author platform.

You Got This!

No matter how far you are from polishing your first work of fiction, it is never too early to start building the foundation of your author platform.

And the sooner you begin, the more stable that platform will be by the time you do get published!

Have questions about any of the points above or about author platforms in general? Ask us via the comments box below.