For writers, authors, and in-betweens.
Hello, Internet Maverick,
In this post, we’ll read about the different web-platforms for writers/authors.
If you’re a writer, you need a professional brand,
and if you have a brand, you need a web-platform.
It’s more than a fancy way of saying that you, the writer/author, have an email list or a landing page or even a website:
A web-platform is a bona fide shining and engaging face of your professional brand.
It is the only thing that consummates all your digital marketing or sales needs such as a new sign up and/or eBook download and/or directly buying your products/services.
Ranging from the simplest form of having an email list to owning a huge traffic website with complex functionalities, a web-platform serves as the foundation for your brand that vividly paints the picture of your identity, your credibility, your authority and your unique voice to your audience.
It is a junction at where the new reader or a subscriber or a potential buyer stops after stumbling upon a small piece of content of yours, organically or otherwise.
Months ago I read an article on medium. A blogger complained about how she wasn’t able to find more info about her new favorite science fiction author whom she came across in a Facebook group. She gave up after hours of thorough search online and not finding any more info about him or his books. She then contacted the author in the group. She mentioned to him she was having a hard time finding more of his work online. She suggested him to start with a basic author website to make it easier for new readers like her to find his other books.
And she was right to do so.
Although I wouldn’t suggest any writer or author to straight away start with a website (reasons given below).
Web-Platforms for Writers/Authors
There are 5 types of web-platforms for writers that come to my mind when I write about them:
- An Email List
- Landing Page
- Social Media
- Platforms like Medium/Ghost
- Website
Email List & Email Service Providers (ESPs)
This is where every novice or experienced writer needs to start if they’ve chosen to take a leap of faith online this year. Start with the goal of building an email list of your dedicated followers who will buy more from you than your social media followers. Because unlike social media followers, you will have an unhindered and direct connection with your fans on your list. ESPs provide a more personalized experience to your readers, like they’re talking to a human being.
But start small and simple: Choose an ESP like Mailchimp, write tons of content, ask your readers/viewers to subscribe to your mailing list, send them newsletters about your new content and keep solidifying the trust among your readers. This trust will one day lead to your book sales directly from your sweet little email list.
A simple example is the case of Ryan Holiday, who started with a simple method of sending emails to his subscribers, recommending a list of books to read. And in those recommended lists he would add his own book. His book came to attention to all those subscribers in his email list.
And believe me, this is the cheapest, simplest and most useful web-platform to build your writing brand.
Landing Pages
If you’ve an eBook, you need a landing page.
Landing pages are like mini-versions of a website. You build websites for the purpose of providing complete info about you and your books — something for your readers to explore. While LPs provide only the asked information on a single page.
A basic landing page will provide only enough information about you or your book, which should compel your reader to take an action such as submitting their private info to you. An LP can also act as a dedicated platform for your book by providing detailed but exact & uncluttered info about your book, unlike the distracting Amazon page of your book.
An LP is the best and cost-effective alternative of having a website — which requires a lot of monitoring and maintenance. LPs are easier to create and maintain and are customizable to behave like a website. You can also integrate it with your first web-platform — your email list. For e.g. as a part of your book promotion campaign, you can put up a landing page as the place for new readers to sign up for your mailing list through various methods such as book release date info, or free sample eBook download of your final book, or discount coupons on your book when it releases.
You should know that while setting up your ESP and email list is quite effortless, when setting up LPs you must either have a design of your LP ready as per your marketing needs and set it up on your own, or hire an LP designer.
Social Media Platforms
I shouldn’t put Social Media in the category of web-platforms because, well they’re useful for sending your followers and people who like your writing, to your other web-platforms like LPs, or Website or your book’s Amazon page.
For e.g., after you’ve written an article/blog, you share it on your social media accounts. Readers flock to see what you posted and if it interests them, they click the link which sends them to your web-platform.
Social Media can be the best and free alternative to paying your bucks to ESPs, LP designs, or hosting services for your website. But given their certain proprietary limitations, I’d put them in a secondary category of web-platforms. They only come handy when you’re building a crowd around your brand who will definitely give you your social metrics but probably won’t buy your book.
Additionally, social media provides little to no customization that you can do with your other web-platforms. Customization such as custom UI design, personalization, custom UX functionalities — anything to augment your engagement with your audience is not possible with social media.
Medium/Ghost
Blogging platforms like Medium are a great starting point of your writing career, and they can also serve you in such a way that you wouldn’t ever need a web-platform. Whether you’re a novice or experienced writer, or somewhere in between like me, I’ll encourage you to start your content writing career on such platforms instead of going for hosting your own blog.
There are a lot of writers here on Medium who do not have a web-platform, but they’re building their writing brand and growing their followers by only doing one most important thing: writing.
And that’s what these platforms are for:- writing and writing only. There are subtle advantages to writing here on Medium: you can write about any topic in any niche and still find an audience who’ll like your content and follow you. Plus, you can add your ESP web-platform or LPs to your Medium content as per your marketing needs.
But then again, by definition of a web-platform, Medium isn’t really one due to the absence of customizations, and it’s not the place where people buy from you directly as is with Social Media.
Note: About Ghost: you should know that like WordPress.org, there exists Ghost.org, which is free to download and set up like a WordPress blog. But also there is Ghost.com, which is wayyy costlier than blogging on Medium.
Website
Firstly:
Let me give you an adage you might disagree with: You don’t need a website, yet!
That’s right. You don’t need one, even though every other writer is screaming at your face to get one. Why? Because they’re either telling you a half-truth or a complete lie for their own good. It’s not as simple as they all make it sound. Believe me, you’re robbing yourself of the precious time trying to figure out the design, hosting services, and installing WordPress, which rather would’ve spent on becoming a better writer. You need to know what kind of value your website will give to your readers who visit your website. What will they find there, and why should they bother to explore the whole site?
A website will be necessary at the stage of your writing career when your writing becomes a real business. If today in your writing career you’re just starting to build your 1000 ‘true fans’ or you don’t have a crystal clear vision, then having a website before any other web-platforms that I’ve mentioned above is an unwise step.
Secondly:
A website is the true powerhouse of your brand. Your website will represent the theme of the work that you do for a living. It can be the temple of your identity, your credibility, your authority, and your unique voice.
A website can sustain any kind of customization done to it or any feature added to it to increase the level of engagement with your audience. For e.g. Your readers can view the library of your books and your books only. There’s nothing to distract them. Every info they need about you or your book is in one place. They won’t even need to go to Amazon. If you’ve a shopping cart feature added to your site, your readers can checkout with their copy of your book or any other digital product within the website.
Think of all kinds of enhancements that you can add to your website such as shopping carts, blogs, newsletter sign-ups, videos, images, exit-intent popups, etc. Such features are not available for other web-platform I listed above.
And most of all, a website solves the problem of the blogger I talked about earlier.
The Final Word
At this moment of writing this article, even I don’t have a web-platform but I’m working on it. I’ve realized that I need one to help me build my own personal brand. I may start with Mailchimp as my ESP, plus a landing page for sign-ups. The moment I’ve enough audience in my mailing list and a clear vision of how I will sell my future books, only then I will create my website.
I believe that’s the right path to follow. You should start small, simple, and it should be cost-friendly while setting up your own web-platform.
Once you’ve a solid foundation for your brand, you can start integrating different web-platforms and create sophisticated marketing funnels with each of the platforms working together in helping you reach the digital marketing goals of your writing business.
Ask me questions you’ve about web-platforms: writeto@siddharthshukla.net
Cheers,
Sid
