Before you can develop a network of thousands of people hanging on to your every work, you need to start by establishing friendships. At its heart, an author’s platform is simply a large collection of people with whom you have built some degree of relationship.

This first tip is simple – show genuine interest in those around you both offline and on.

Rather than tweeting your book cover for the nine-hundred-and-fifty-seventh time, try showing some interest in the people who follow you. People who like you as a person are more likely to be supportive and interested in something you have written or will write.

It turns out the real author platform was the friends you made along the way. You win as an author through the power of friendship. Yes really.

Go, make some new friends.