Why I Think Substack Is A Great Place To Build Your Author Platform
If there were a place to start out, Substack would be the place.
It is tough to sell books if you don’t have an author platform.
Building an author platform can be very hard, too. After all, you must have a social media presence, a blog, and an email list.
This is true for any author, whether traditionally published or self-published. It doesn’t matter. When you are traditionally published, you must also have a strong base for your author platform.
Nowadays, some traditional publishers won’t even consider signing an author who has less than 10,000 email subscribers. - Thomas Umstattd, Author Media
It is crucial to have an author platform. Yet, with the internet's ever-changing landscape, how can we build up followers and email subscribers?
After all, there are so many options for places to be, and it sometimes feels like we are shouting into a void to try and get followers and subscribers. What should we do?
Have you checked out this book yet?
Learning to Respect My Strut: My Journey as a Woman Warrior by Karen Taylor
This book shares stories of a woman on a journey to discover her true self and experience life with all of its ups and downs, taking along the belief that gender is inconsequential to our goals in life.
Enter Substack: Social Media, Blog, and Newsletters
Substack has changed the online creation world by making it easy to start building an email list. When it started, it made sense how easy it was to blog and send emails since they were all the same article.
Now that Substack has the Notes feature, it’s like having social media with your blog and your newsletter.
This changes everything because Substack is a great place to start. You set up your Substack page and email newsletter and create notes here first. Then, you can expand by repurposing your blog to Medium and your Notes to other socials.
And through it all, everything should point back to Substack.
Substack Notes
What I love about Substack Notes is that you can format a note and add emojis, photos, or even videos. There are no hashtags to try to curb your views, but the more you engage and ask questions, the better.
Substack Posts
This is your blog post and your email. They work great together because you can publish your post (Like this one), which will go to your email list. And if something catches someone in the email, they can come to your Substack page, like it, or leave a comment.
Make Money with Substack
Now, you can sell your books by sharing them on Notes or in your posts. You can also set up paid subscriptions to serialize your books or share insights about your books. So, now you aren’t just growing a following and subscribers, but you can make money, too. (Here are a few ways I have monetized my Substack!)
Final Thoughts on Substack & Your Author Platform
I think Substack is the perfect place to start an author platform. It has all the tools to get you started. You need it to create a home, and you can expand from here onto other sites.
On top of all that, you have the opportunity to earn money along the way, which can help fund your book process and get you moving on to creating a self-publishing business.
How else might you use Substack to grow your author platform? What are some things keeping you from making Substack your author platform base?
My name is J.R. Heimbigner, and I am a #1 Bestselling Author on Amazon with 14 self-published books. I have two things I want to share with you:
A short book to help you use your Substack posts to write books.
The First Draft Masterclass. I share exactly how to write your first draft so you can get that book published!
Have a book already? See how I can promote it with my newsletter!
Also, this post may contain sales or affiliate links, so I might get a little kickback if you purchase anything. Thank you in advance!
To answer your questions:
1. Always a different title. Sometimes it’s the exact same post/ other times I add/delete some content. And I’m not sure about SEO as I’m targeting more platform traffic.
2. I create back links to Substack in my articles, and put at Call to Action for people to subscribe to Substack.
3. I do t see why they wouldn’t let you add a link to ConvertKit. Though you could add your Lead magnets to Substack too.
I love Substack. I need to get on a regular posting schedule to really take advantage of its benefits. I'm working on it. Thanks for the post.