Author As Brand Is Out of Control | Author Platform in 2021

hello everyone alexa dunn here and today we are going to talk about author platform author social media and the author as brand advice on author branding and platform is actually one of the first topics i ever talked about on this channel thus that video is very old three and a half years old a lot has changed some things haven't changed at all but i wanted to come back to this topic it's a big topic of discussion nowadays to both kind of refresh and renew my advice some things are the same some things are a little bit different and then mostly have a discussion about the way that things are evolving for authors the author as brand the pressure that is put on to authors to be the brand questions about how much you share online whether you must be an author as a brand in order to be successful things like that i don't have any answers or solutions but i do have thoughts i know this is something that stresses everyone out stresses us out and it can be really overwhelming so author platform in 2021 do you need a platform to be published in fiction no the answer remains no meaning it is not required to build and have a platform in order to get an agent or in order to get a book deal however comma will your publisher expect you to build a platform for fiction yes it remains true that you simply cannot function as a commercially published traditionally published author nowadays without having some kind of social media presence without putting yourself out there in some way the days of the hermit author the author who you don't even really quite know what they look like suzanne collins that remains pretty much over and should you endeavor to thus do that and be pretty engaged in social media as an author yes that remains best practices and advice because it's just kind of the reality of things nowadays readers expect to be able to find authors online on various social platforms they expect to be interested in a book and also look up the author and then potentially engage with the author and that's the thing that is like so completely different from how it used to be it's the level of engagement that readers expect from authors but this is where it gets really sticky and this isn't me blaming readers by the way there's reader expectation there and we as authors are also readers and we engage in this as well because it's the idea of parasocial relationships which can legit end up selling books everyone's playing this game everyone has been feeding into this but they're always going to be kind of extremes that things can be taken to and i i have been concerned for some time with some of what we are seeing and people are discussing it more and more often and publishers have driven this a lot as well which we will get to in the discussion portion but the author as brand in some cases many cases it seems more important than the book and that's or the books and that's where it's getting really really dicey uh because of the amount of pressure that that can put on author some of the blowback that can come back on authors when essentially you are present and available all the time on social media and it becomes as much about who you as an author are or more about who you as an author are as the work itself so i'm gonna get the advice out of the way the practical portion the update to my author platform advice from years ago most of which again has not changed so you should pick bare minimum one social media platform and you should engage and invest in that one social media platform as much as you can not all the time don't worry but you have to essentially exist somewhere on a social media site in decent measure in addition to an author website simply having an author website isn't really enough so pick one platform it could be twitter it could be instagram it could be youtube though as you may know another thing that hasn't changed is technically i advise you be on two to three you only have to like really update one a ton but having the other ones in concert together can be very very smart and i am going to go through each platform specifically including ones like tech talk facebook tumblr to kind of give you my updated thoughts on those platforms and what they can do for you and how you can use them but like at bare minimum like make a twitter and like be on twitter a decent amount or make an instagram and be on instagram a decent amount or youtube so on and so forth but my caveat here is don't think of this in terms of like i will be on this platform and that is how i will sell books i actually have entire videos on does twitter sell books and does youtube sell books and i mean slight spoiler alert the conclusion on twitter was not really but it can and youtube was yes maybe but if you have to put in a ton of work generally you shouldn't think of any social media as transactional in a sense of like if i put in x effort i will sell y copies it doesn't quite work with that like the thing is engagement and marketing it's this nebulous thing you can rarely prove specific concrete results but all we know is there's something about being present on social media and having some level of engagement with potential readership that can certainly impact book sales because of parasocial relationships which are one-way relationships where you engage with someone on social media and you feel like you know them and you feel like you have a relationship but you don't really but regardless of that those kind of warm and fuzzy feelings can definitely lead to fans and book sales and that's essentially the crux of being an author on social media author platform author branding so for my platform specific thoughts twitter instagram and kind of youtube remain the top three they remain the three that are still relevant that are have the widest bases are the most user-friendly kind of but that make the most sense for authors and where most authors are choosing to go and so generally my advice my advice honestly if you decide to do youtube is to do all three but if you're not gonna do youtube to do instagram and twitter but use them differently so twitter i find it's kind of like the universal catch-all platform that's good for just literally existing as an author on the internet it's the best compliment to say having an author website having an author website and a twitter because twitter is a platform where it just it makes sense to push out updates to your reader it functions as a real-time informational website that was the intention of it originally it's evolved in a lot of ways but it still sticks to that core it's a place for pushing out information but also having conversations it's meant to drive one-on-one real-time engagement thus i find that twitter is the best platform for putting super essential information in your bio your book titles your agent's name your website url etc and using that and things like the pin tweet function to like pin your most important current thing whether that's your latest book deal pre-order links upcoming events etc so i find that twitter is the best place for essentially pushing updates out to your reader with some light engagement i am not gonna go in depth on all of the there's so much to twitter there's also very good reasons to not be on twitter and not enjoy twitter and twitter i find is of all of them is the one that can lead to the most mental health stress burnout etc because twitter i mean they all demand a lot of you as an author in terms of like putting yourself out there but twitter can in a very particular way that can it's leading to a ton of burnout in a ton of people it's one of the biggest culprits of this burnout of author as brand so meaning understand that while i recommend it more than anything and i remain on there twitter's got problems too and if you just cannot handle twitter that's okay so instagram is the next one and one of the pros of instagram is that it is more of a not it's not a one-way space there's obviously ways to engage with people but functionally it just feels very different from twitter and i mean the pros can also be the cons but meaning instagram is less a place to have kind of heated conversations discussion push things forward and more a cure you can curate kind of what you are doing on instagram you're posting pretty photographs you're using stories to show people your real life and like i don't care that twitter has added video content come on bro really that's what instagram is for so instagram can be the best place to kind of really that's where you're showing potential readership what your life is like because you can use stories and reels to bring them into kind of what you're doing and post short clips or put up polls and people really love following authors and like they pop up in their stories and they can see what they're up to i say this is someone who has sharply fallen off a cliff when it comes to instagram because the pandemic but like i still really like it as a platform i am just personally using it very poorly so don't look to me as an example but instagram just be a great place to curate your feed show your slice of life i find it's less good for like pushing information news updates etc partly because the only real opportunity to link to things on instagram is you can put a link in your bio uh if you're like a normal person famous people and brands can use links more often but like so it's a little less effective for like say if you post a pre-order link if there are these extra steps you would might post a photo in your feed or you post in your stories but you have to drive them to your bio and hope that they click so it's a little less effective in that sense than say twitter but i still enjoy instagram as a platform to be on as an author though i'll say like the other thing that i find is like about it is that i am someone who needs a desktop app and if you are like me i'm just never gonna be as happy with something where i have to use my phone to write large swaths of text because the thing that has become a thing on instagram is people will write really long captions as a way of like telling stories and engaging more with their readership and if you take that tack i just i find that really annoying like the extra steps i have to take to write long swaths of text but that's that's a whole other thing about instagram there are many authors who use instagram really really well and it can be a good one especially if you're visually inclined if you have a knack for photography and you can create a nice speed it's great but even if not just utilize the stories function because people love engaging with authors on stories my one warning for authors who are considering instagram uh the social norms are decent on twitter in terms of not tagging authors in negative reviews but the social norms are a lot fuzzier on instagram bookstagram because someone will take a beautiful photo of a book but then they might include a review in the caption that isn't positive but there's still this norm on instagram of tagging authors in instagram posts regardless of the content so my warning to authors is to be very very careful on instagram in terms of things you are tagged in if you are more sensitive to reviews and also be careful searching the hashtag for your name or your book because they're still very fuzzy social norms on like who instagram is for essentially um and you can stumble upon content that you might not want to see that is definitely one warning for authors but personally like if you can't handle twitter my number one recommendation is being an author on instagram next is youtube i have that whole video on it and i still think obviously because i'm here hi it's my favorite if you couldn't tell youtube is the platform i like the most and the reason is like i enjoy making videos obviously but if you are interested in being an author on youtube you can share your process you can do live streams there's so many opportunities for interaction and i personally think it's one of the best platforms for building that parasocial relationship but you have to like it you have to genuinely engage with youtube like i feel like some people treat youtube as like a one-way content generator where they just throw things up and expect things to happen you have to engage with people on youtube in the way that youtube makes it organic and once you learn those ways and if you like those ways and you do it i really like it i like that i can do live streams and engage with people in chat i like interacting with the comments you know the community tab's a little clunky but i still enjoy using it and so like that's something that i like about youtube but that said when i know that i need to make an update on things going on like yes i'll make a video about it but i know that the best way to actually reach a wider swath of readership is to post that update to twitter or to instagram so that's why i do all three in concert and i use them for different things so that remains my platform specific advice youtube being the optional one because youtube just isn't right for every single author but if you like youtube join us join us i like it obviously so facebook tumblr and snapchat remain pretty irrelevant or have become irrelevant over the years especially since i made that last video like especially in like the kid lit space there are going to be genre exceptions that still like a facebook as platform can be efficient but i exist in the kidlet space and facebook was irrelevant three and a half years ago and it's still irrelevant now it's just not the best platform to use if you were in those spaces but if you want to throw something up maybe mirror it to one of your other social accounts you can do people still use tumblr like sadly tumblr used to be something that i recommended especially for hosting your author website and that just really isn't the case anymore because of various implosions that they've had like it i just don't think that's the platform anymore snapchat's pretty irrelevant which brings me to tick-tock um because the thing that i find fascinating about snapchat you know i think years ago i said like i don't mess with snapchat because i don't get it which remains true but that's the thing i didn't think it was going to stick around and it really really hasn't and vines gone not like i brought up vine in that video i think it was even dead by the time i made that video but meaning i'm very wary of trendier shorter form younger leaning social media platforms that doesn't mean don't use them so my thing about tick tock i actually think if you like tik tok and you want to make they call it book talk do it i actually am excited to see what authors are doing on tik tok i think more authors should cultivate spaces on tick tock but my caveat here is i don't think you should make tick tock your one and only so when you're picking when i say want pick one and one and only it should be one of the really the big two twitter and instagram big three if you're including youtube but as i mentioned i think you need youtube plus at least to twitter or youtube plus and instagram i don't think tick tock should be your one and only the reason being while select pieces of content can and do and are going viral tech talk still has a very specific kind of audience it means very young it leans very mobile dependent and you will literally just miss a wide swath of potential audience if that is your one and only but as an extra now i'm too exhausted by the pandemic and lots of other things and also talk requires of it's like this fascinating mix of creativity and authenticity and if you can walk that line i mean it's similar to people who are really really good at utilizing stories on instagram those stories different from tick tock which is why instagram launched reels like we see the copy copy but if you are good at creating that short form potentially viral content do it book talk is doing really exciting things it's growing and it's exciting in a way that booktube used to be or bookstagram still kind of is but like bookstore definitely had like a boom a couple of years ago so book talk is a really interesting space to be and so my advice there is if you're so inclined give it a whirl because let's see which authors break out and can really do something with the platform but have that in concert with an instagram or a twitter or a youtube and be smart about how you use it we'll see how it goes in in terms of the test of time and how like widely used it remains because even like i think about the early days of you know twitter or facebook it took years for those to reach a critical mass and really reach a mainstream and that's what snapchat failed to do ultimately it was a platform that was only really utilized by a specific subset of people and then of course you know instagram copied some of their functionality and other ones as well and that's what's fascinating about social media it's it's always kind of a moving target and it's always kind of growing and changing uh but it'll be interesting we haven't seen a social media platform come up that could reasonably replace twitter that could reasonably replace facebook or instagram and i don't mean replace i mean like innovate on and be like a new thing that could do all the things that's what's fascinating to me like pick one or ideally two or three and be good at them but really no social media is ideal or perfect for authors so to speak so the last bit of the advice i've already mentioned off their website you need to make sure that you have an author website it doesn't have to be fancy i actually my number one recommendation is just putting up a square space you can pay for a year at a time it's all like drag and drop and plug and play you only need a couple of pages on it things like you definitely want to have your contact information if you have a media kit you should have information about your books you should have information about any events that you're doing you don't have to update it all the time but it should exist and it should have the information that people might go seeking on your website including links to your social media so make sure you have that update it's semi-regularly she says needing to update her website that's the trick with having all these do and this is where it gets overwhelming you have all these different things that you have to keep up on and so again you have my permission you can have these different sites and it's okay if you fall off on one of them she says having barely updated her instagram during the pandemic but i i blame the pandemic for that one and then newsletters and blogs these are in the past i would have recommend definitely have a newsletter but again you're looking at someone who has been really crappy at updating her newsletter and so do the things that you want to do that you're are capable of doing on a semi-regular basis and otherwise don't beat yourself up about not doing all the things with platform because that we're gonna move into transition to momentarily is the discussion portion of what all of these demands on us and the things that we have to do to build an author platform what that means and what that does to us so start a newsletter if you want but honestly i think there's a little bit of newsletter fatigue because everyone has one and they're mostly the same they're basically emailed versions of blogs blogs remain kind of they still sit in the same nebulous space this at in three and a half years ago which is the traffic and readership is just not gonna be as high like you will get trust you will get more mileage out of a youtube video than you will a blog but the written form is just preferable for some people so blog if you want to blog not going to stop you uh so but pick the things that you want to do that you can actually keep up with so then just a couple tips about brand consistency and like overall tips that are going to transition us into the discussion part uh i highly advise you have the same author handle like something easy to remember ideally it's your name your author name across all of your social media spaces you can have some exceptions where like maybe you have a funkier handle on one but honestly you want something that is recognizedly and obviously you that people can remember very important and overall so overall what is the point of all of this the overall it's to offer a snapshot of who you are and your life via social media so that readers feel like they know you it's that parasocial relationship thing that they feel like they know you that they connect to you or relate to you on some level and that they like you that is what we are cultivating we're going to transition into this new thing it's not that new but it's worse of how much authors are expected to be brands and how important authors are as brands and the expectations and demands placed upon us to put it all out on the internet uh that is the price of admission is it kind of but i really question and don't like the idea of like just because you wrote a book and it's published that you're a public figure i have problems with it but still let's talk about the author as brand and what this means for us what this means for publishers the problems i have with it and as i said i don't necessarily have solutions but i'll tell you how i feel and this has come up on twitter in the last week and people have been discussing it because you know there are different schools of thought there are people who say suck it up buttercup your job is to build this platform on social media and be an author on social media and you need to give and give and give and it's all about how who you are it matters who you are people need to like you and that is exhausting like it's exhausting and as i already kind of said the answer is yes but i think we've taken it too far and part of what's just so frustrating about it we've taken it too far we see authors who burn out friends we experienced it ourselves i've even with the boundaries i've set up i have still had moments where i just felt this crushing obligation of like being on the internet and like there are all sorts of things that come with it like you're considered a public figure authors get a lot more flack the things people will say to you especially like readers reviewers like it's incredible viewers in the case of youtube it's incredible people will gossip about you speculate ridiculous things about you some of the things i have read about myself i mean i try to laugh it off like some of them are hilariously off base but then the other part is like wow literally people speculating some gross things about me because i'm an author who exists on the internet i'm an author with a capital a and i'm not even any one important i can only imagine what it's like for like the really big authors like even the ones that i look up to and think of as like semi-celebrities like basically you become an entity aside from who you are as a real person certainly aside from your books and that author capital a brand becomes as important if not sometimes more important than the book itself so we're now in a situation particularly in the y a sphere where the author is considered as much if not more than the book in acquisitions meetings like who you are as an author can definitely factor into decisions now it remains true that you don't have to be someone to get an agent to get a publishing deal but we also know and we're not gonna deny that it's true that if you are already someone and you have a platform and you have like an angle essentially a marketing angle it will be easier to get your foot in the door and get a book deal because of how much off who the author is is considered in decision making and publishing and that's just at acquisition the other thing we see a truth that we know and acknowledge is that this comes up in marketing and publicity decisions it always came up in marketing and publicity decisions to some degree don't get me wrong of well what's the angle on the author it's literally always been publicity's job to pitch you and your book to different media outlets to drive interest in you and your book but it's way way worse it is literally literally the case that i've heard that you know there are marketing departments of publishers that will look at authors and go that one is attractive and has a great instagram there'll be a lead title that is a thing that happens and i know that's not fun to hear and you're like stressing potentially or mad it makes me mad but it's true it's true yeah because the thing is like publishers have realized the value of parasocial relationships and social media and author branding and author platform you know because we've seen people become superstars in their own right and it's like the symbiotic thing of people love the author people of the books bye bye bye bye bye well now it's something that really drives the publishing industry especially y a specifically um more than ever it factors into acquisitions decisions marketing decisions but also we've seen cases and this has always been the thing with celebrity books shortly but now what does celebrity mean um where a book could be acquired more so on the strength of who the author is than necessarily the book we've seen it happen or even i've also seen just where publishers aggressively push the author more than the book and it can actually lead to people sleeping on a good book because if the author brand and the way that the author's being pushed doesn't speak to potential readers they might actually not pick up a book because the the publisher is pushing the author too much people are more suspicious when it's like hey the author's really cool and and the the audience is like well what about the book so the less they mention the book it's like so it's kind of a double-edged sword and publishers like when they have like a great author who's really easy to promote i think sometimes the book can get lost but also like you know it means that there are certain author brands that exist and they put out books and the books aren't great but the author brand is strong and like that's where you end up feeling really gaslit by publishing where you're like her and so there are lots of things that are wrong with this that are bad honestly i think for everyone but especially for authors this can end up pushing writers with social anxiety who or who are more introverted than extroverted or who just simply aren't as aesthetically appealing as other certain authors out of the industry sometimes they'll count themselves out before they even start but it happens just as often in the actual trenches it's really kind of unfair when you think about it that it's like who's the best beauty contestant and they're more likely to get the publisher support and have a great career and that doesn't discount the hard work or the books of people who are really good at that stuff but it is fascinating to watch and participate in because it's the game is definitely rigged the game has always been rigged but it feels more rigged than ever in large part because of those demands of social media the other thing and this is a lot of what was being discussed on twitter in the last week and i agree is this author's brand and like having to perform your identity online as a part of being an author with a capital a it can really box in and hurt marginalized writers own voices writers and that brings up the whole thing like even the label of ownvoices has done this to a lot of writers and it's not fair there's this expectation put on the shoulder specifically of marginalized authors to incorporate their marginalization into their brand to educate people perform emotional labor to be more personal in public than maybe they would be inclined to otherwise than maybe they would prefer because that has become an expectation it's become an expectation from everyone by the way on all ends that for many of them it no longer feels like a choice and this hits different communities in different ways we've seen writers who've been forced to out themselves talk about mental health when maybe they didn't want to talk about having a disability when maybe they didn't want to and all of that is a problem and that's why you know we're starting to see pushback and i'm glad we're starting to see pushback because i think we need to seriously interrogate author as bran like yes we have to do it but where are the lines because there should be more lines because it's not fair to tell someone just because of who they are that they need to put all their business on social media so to speak to let it all hang out because it's going to sell them more books it's awful and anything can be fine in kind of moderation or can be fine when it's opt-in there are authors who love that stuff who love talking about their experiences who enjoy advocacy and do it incredibly well but now we see publishers and industry professionals and readers demanding that of everyone like that author's really sparkling and witty and vulnerable why can't you be like that and it leads to problems and anxiety but here here's here's the where it's complicated so the reason all of this has happened is that it works author is brand and social relationships work it has always been a tried and true marketing publicity tactic as i mentioned it has always been a thing that a publisher would consider how can we package the book and the author who wrote it and like push this as a publicity narrative and it's just really hard because as i mentioned the era of the hermit author the author who just quietly writes books and doesn't kind of participate in social media and whatnot it is it's almost impossible to do that nowadays to come into the industry as a debut and do that now and i don't like the idea that if you have to do this in order to be an author who's worth promoting but the reality is publishers do expect authors to do their share of building their platform building their brand driving engagement and authors who don't do that it's just gonna make it a lot harder to survive in the industry another thing where i think this is very very complicated is i actually like having my own author platform and this is where it gets tricky it's like a thing can be good but a thing can have sharp edges people can take things too far and that's where i think we're sitting but the thing that i've really liked about building my author platform first of all i actually enjoy marketing and i know not everyone enjoys marketing if you do it is definitely easier um i like engagement i like interacting with readers with fellow writers especially with fellow writers and obviously i'd like having this youtube channel and so that is something that has worked for me i'll tell you something i experienced with my second book and this is why i'm kind of like the pros and cons of this whole author platform malarkey there's something to be said for the agency that it gives an author to have that aspect of their marketing and promotion under their control it's not something that their publisher controls and as you know there's a wide variety of experiences in publishing when it comes to publishers doing marketing for books doing sufficient marketing for books which yes we're going to talk about publishers contribute to this problem more than anything but there's something to be said when you don't win the marketing lottery with a publisher which happens a lot there's more authors and more books than there's possibly bandwidth in time at publishers to properly market all of them there's something beautiful about being in full control of your own social media of your own uh that aspect of your author platform it's something that you can control something that you can do and you've at least for me it alleviated a lot of anxiety when it came to my second book i didn't get a huge marketing push for my publisher for my second book but because i had been building my social media for two almost three years i mean more than that but like youtube for for three years and i kind of had a knack for the things i knew that i liked to do i had a readership i had a newsletter subscription my social media platforms had been growing especially youtube i was able to be like it's okay i'm going to do xyz these things that i want to do that i know i can do in order to do the bare minimum of kind of promotion for this title that's coming out deep breaths it's okay there's something you can do and that felt good but then so here's here's the truth that is universally acknowledged and this is why really this is on publishers this whole author is brand thing and where if things have gone off balance and like it's like it maybe was like this and now it's like this where publishers have taken it too far because everyone knows there's only so much an author themselves by themselves using the tools at their disposal which is essentially social media can really move the needle on sales and ultimately they really can't the number one thing that's going to make a real difference in someone's sales like the kind of difference that matters sales and success is marketing support from your publisher they are able to do things that an author simply can't do and so really the onus remains on the publisher to market books books not authors books not authors and with the rise of author's brand and many authors being very good at it and being able to directly engage with their readership is that publishers have gotten lazy that is the crux of this publishers rely far too heavily on what authors are doing for their platform and it's led to a lot of the problems that we're seeing authors feel like they're alone in a sea trying to fight against the current to shout about their books to hopefully sell enough to keep their publishers happy and there are all these demands placed on them to be a certain kind of person to be themselves to give give give give give be this way say that do this and it's overwhelming exhausting we're seeing a lot of burnout we're seeing a lot of frustration that is where we live now ideally what would happen would be a publisher would go oh it's so great that you've done this we're going to jump off of what you are already doing to do even more we're going to do all the things that you can't do and your author platform is gravy rather than the meal but instead they go oh great you've got this handled you're doing a really great job like bye and they leave us holding the bag and yeah sure we'll do everything we can do but honestly 99.9 of the time you as the author you are just not going to be able to do anything close to what your publisher can do so it could end up being feeling just kind of futile and just as a note like this is one of the reasons that i know why saturation and like the industry kind of trimming itself down the ysi trimming itself down is scary for a lot of people but on the author's side i'm hoping this means that if they're publishing fewer titles in a given season and list that they might actually find the bandwidth i hope publishers to disperse their marketing and publicity support more evenly and i do have to say like i have that hope because i have had good experiences like i have sat on smaller lists non-crowded seasons for publishers where i got a lot of publishing support and that's how it should be for everyone i i wish that for everyone and thus you should also know like it really varies in publishing you can't just paint it with a whole brush like there are imprints and marketing publicity departments that are really really good at working with the author kind of augmenting their platform they take that pressure off they help them and you all work beautifully together and it works out but too often it is the other one so i actually had a thing on my outline talking about being pretty in publishing and kind of that uh sharp edge of this whole thing this video is already way too long and i really want to wrap it up but like let me know down below in the comments maybe i will make a standalone video on that but where where does this this leave us honestly where this leaves us is if you're feeling overwhelmed if you're angry if you're frustrated it's not your fault but we also kind of exist in a world currently that i hope changes but might not where you are expected to be an author with a capital a you are expected to build a platform you are expected to build your brand but my advice personally with realistic caveats is decide what you're comfortable with and then do that bare minimum like pick one or two a few platforms and establish those boundaries early on and maintain those boundaries and those boundaries being i say more often than not be circumspect about what you share now those decisions can come with opportunity costs and that is the part that really isn't fair and we should be angry about and we should continue to push back but opportunity costs what i mean is just because you are not going to talk about a certain thing or present yourself in a certain way doesn't mean someone else isn't perfectly willing to do it and they won't be really really good at it and so my practical like note to throw in here is make the choices that are right for you that you know are gonna protect your mental health that are gonna kind of protect you in the long term that you're comfortable with but you might wrestle with kind of comparison syndrome and jealousy because you are gonna see people who are just like killing the game in terms of author brandon identity but that doesn't mean like it has to be you make the choices you're comfortable with and just kind of go with them so meaning don't listen to people who tell you you must author platform in this exact way or you're not going to have a career just be thoughtful circumspect and aware and then navigate things as best as you can and then honestly write good books like i think that that that's what's so frustrating for me that gets lost and like i don't blame the people who do it but i do think we can get so wrapped up in author branding and platform and like being an author online i do think the books get lost in the shuffle and the number one way for you to combat kind of well i'm not as shiny on social media is but i wrote a killer book and at the end of the day as messed up as things are in the publishing industry they're definitely uneven and we could use some serious course correction great books still sell all the time regardless of who writes them is it easier to sell them if you're also killing the game at author branding and social media sure but if you present them with a great book at the right time and so luck and timing are working on your side it will matter far less that you're not the ideal perfect author to write that book so basically get there first with your great book before someone else who has sexy social media author brandon gets there with a similar idea and kill the game my next piece of practical advice honestly is to be very thoughtful when you are choosing your agent which is good advice all the time and i've talked about fit a lot but because pay attention to how different agents approach branding and platform for their author list for the authors with their agency you can usually spot the differences and if you are concerned about being pushed in a way that you are not comfortable with in terms of your author platform don't query and sign with agents who value strong author platform as much as they value a good book i mean really sharkier agents are going to consider author platform and author as brand far more than less sharky agents because strong author branding can sell a book quickly and for a lot of money as long as the book has like a hot concept as well and so there are certain types of agents who do push their clients way harder in terms of platform and brand and they do require them to be on certain platforms and perform in a certain way on social media and so don't sign with those agents ask those questions on an offer call about how they approach that long-term career strategy how they approach author branding do they have rules so to speak for their clients guidelines that they expect them to follow how much are they going to push you as their author to take marketing on yourself and especially if you are a marginalized creator i think that piece is even more important you need to make sure that you're going to land with an agent who has your best interests in mind who understands who you are not only as a person but as a writer understands what you need and then does their best to advocate for you in the way that you need them to advocate for you it's important for everyone but i think it's especially important for marginalized creators who i do see bearing the brunt of this kind of shift where publishers just put far too much of the onus on platform building and marketing on to the author so in conclusion this video is way too long it's a thing that's happening it's okay if you're frustrated these are my rambling thoughts and feelings in 2021 about this whole thing do the best you can talk to fellow authors it's okay to set boundaries it's also okay to go hard at it for a while and get burnt out and then step back that is completely okay you don't have to do it forever but there are certain things that you can't take back in the sense that i know this is my personal opinion but less is more at least in the beginning like kind of dip your toes into the water of who you are as an author brand because once you kind of are super vulnerable and you share a lot it can be harder to take that back but again some people that's how they use social media and they love it use social media in the way that works for you personally and just be mindful of kind of how author brand works and some of the challenges that you might face this is a discussion one so let's light up the comments section down below i'm curious about your thoughts i imagine overwhelmingly that i see a lot of stress about this from aspiring and up and coming authors who feel a lot of pressure on this what are your questions about author platform how are you approaching author platform i mean at the end of the day like publishers just need to do more marketing for books i'll die on that hill give this video a thumbs up if you like it i'll make more rambling discussion style videos hopefully with more focus and if you're not already subscribed to the channel go ahead and do that i post new videos two to three times a week as always guys thank you so much for watching and happy writing

Channel: Alexa Donne

Views: 21,272

Rating: 4.9433961 out of 5

Keywords: alexa donne, author tube, writing advice, how to write a book, publishing advice

Id: kce43wh4-l0

Length: 44min 3sec (2643 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 02 2021