There is a particular kind of panic that arrives the first time someone asks a debut novelist about their platform. You have spent two years learning your characters' voices. Now you are apparently expected to have a mailing list, a website and a following on a platform you have never quite understood.
Take a breath. A platform is not a performance. It is the group of people who will hear about your book when it exists — and for a fiction writer, that group usually grows slowly, through small actions repeated over months. None of it has to swallow your writing time. Here is how to build it without losing the plot.
Start with the readers you already have
Most writers imagine they are starting from zero. They are not. You have friends who ask what you are working on. You have a writing group, colleagues, a cousin who reads three novels a week, a local book club that meets above a pub. Those are real readers, and they are exactly the people who will pre-order a debut nobody has heard of.
Spend twenty minutes writing a list of everyone who might genuinely want to know when your book comes out. Aim for twenty names. Be honest about it: this is not a list to sell to, it is a map of your starting point, and it is usually longer than you expect.
Then think about where readers of your kind of fiction gather. If you write cosy crime, they are in particular forums and Facebook groups. If you write romantic fantasy, they are somewhere else entirely. You are looking for two or three places you could plausibly belong to — not a demographic to target.
Build a website that does one job
Your website has a single task for now: to let a curious reader find you and join your list. Everything else is optional.
The pages you need
- Home. Your name, the kind of fiction you write, and a signup form visible without scrolling.
- About. A few hundred words in the first person, saying who you are and what you like to read and write.
- Contact. An email address or a simple form. Readers do write to debut authors, and so do bloggers and festival organisers.
What to leave out for now
Do not start a blog out of guilt. An abandoned blog with three posts from 2019 looks worse than no blog at all. Skip the shop, skip the animated header, skip the complicated theme you will spend a weekend fighting. A straightforward author site from a reputable host, on a domain you own, is enough. Buy the domain in your author name rather than your book title — you will write another book, and you will want somewhere to put it.
Start the newsletter before you have news
This is the part that pays off later, and the part writers postpone longest. Begin with whatever number you have, even if it is nine people. Nine readers who chose to hear from you are worth more than a thousand passive followers.
What to send when nothing has happened
You are not writing a newspaper. You are writing a letter to people who liked the idea of your book. That gives you plenty of material:
- A scene you cut from the manuscript and still miss.
- The strange bit of research you fell down a hole for — how a Victorian pawnbroker's licence worked, or what a Hebridean winter smells like.
- A book you loved this month, and the one sentence that shows why.
- A question. Which of these two titles sounds more like the book you want to read?
- Milestones, when they come: a finished draft, an agent, a cover, a publication date.
Once a month is plenty. Predictable beats frequent. Keep sign-ups opt-in — in the UK, marketing emails require consent, so never add people who have not asked for them, and check current guidance from the Information Commissioner's Office if you are unsure how the rules apply to what you are doing.
Choose one social platform and use it properly
You do not need to be everywhere. Pick the platform you least dread, and where readers of your genre actually spend time. Fill in the profile completely: a clear photograph, your name, and a line saying what you write.
Then behave like a person. Talk about the books you are reading, the sentence you are proud of, the thing you noticed on the walk to the shop. Reply to other writers. Boost the debut novelist publishing two months ahead of you. A feed that only ever says "buy my book" gives a stranger no reason to follow, while a feed that shows your tastes gives them dozens.
Set a rhythm you can keep in a bad week
Platform work expands to fill whatever time you give it. Decide the limits in advance:
- Thirty minutes a week on social media, in one sitting or split across three mornings.
- One newsletter a month, drafted in a single session and sent without polishing it to death.
- One website check each quarter, to update your bio and confirm the signup form still works.
Keep a running notes file for ideas — a line about a book, an odd fact, a half-formed thought. When newsletter day arrives, you are assembling rather than inventing. If you enjoy scheduling tools, use one. If they become a hobby in themselves, close the tab.
Protect the writing first
Here is the balance that keeps most debut authors sane: the book is the product, and the platform is only the signpost. If the signpost gets more attention than the road, nobody arrives anywhere.
Be sceptical of anyone promising a set number of sales from a set number of followers. Nobody can guarantee that. Be equally sceptical of your own urge to refresh your stats at nine in the morning when you should be writing chapter four. Write first, then spend your platform time. If a week goes badly, publish nothing and forgive yourself.
Your first month, in four small steps
- Week one. Write your list of twenty names. Buy your domain and put up a home page with a signup form.
- Week two. Add the about page, then send a short first newsletter to everyone who has said yes.
- Week three. Choose one platform. Complete your profile and follow twenty people whose work you genuinely like.
- Week four. Write five hundred words about what you are working on and file it away for later.
That is the whole thing: a place to be found, a way to stay in touch, one conversation you enjoy, and a limit on how much time it all takes. Do that for a year and you will have something real to launch with. Do it for three, and it starts to look like a readership.
Photo: Sora Shimazaki / Pexels
