Despite how much we wish it weren’t true, sometimes quantity beats quality. If that is the case for you, then you might want to pick a social media platform with a lot of users. At the start of the year, these were the most populous social media platforms.

Find more statistics at Statista

Readers don’t have a new book need; they have a trustworthy author’s need. There’s no shortage of books a reader could buy – more than they could read in ten lifetimes. What is in short supply are authors they can trust to deliver a good read every time.

Getting readers onto the hype train that is the love of your writing is the hardest part of being an author. To overcome that barrier, consider compiling an anthology of short stories and one or two sample first chapters. Give away some of those short stories anyway you can. For example, I’d suggest putting some of your short stories on your website so anyone can read them. If you put a little explainer at the end of each story, telling readers where they can get more like this, you will have solved the onboarding problem.

Nothing sells a book to a reader like selling another book to the reader and them loving it. Fiction authors can platform build just by finishing more books.

We authors have but one problem – reader onboarding. Once a reader loves one of your books, they are on board to read the rest. The challenge you are trying to solve is the reader onboarding problem. This is what an author platform is for.