How to Build an Author Platform    Chapter 3 of 8

Chapter 3

Social and Beta Publishing

Social and beta publishing are a fantastic way to test how well your book will resonate with readers before you publish it. Many authors are understandably eager to get their books to publication, but you can learn a lot about who your audience is before publishing your book by social or beta publishing it first. You may find out that your actual audience isn’t who you first suspected.

Social and beta publishing offer low-stakes opportunities to get help with design problems, plot gaps, formatting issues, and any number of other concerns from reader feedback. You can upload your book in places that allow you to publish, remove, revise, and republish in just minutes. This enables you to perfect your manuscript before you commit to publication and grow your author platform as you perfect it, making for even better results in the long run. All you have to do is start sharing stories and drafts of your book ahead of time.

Social and beta publishing should be fun. It’s about:

  • Creating community around your interests and your work
  • Aligning yourself with other writers
  • Making friends and important connections
  • Obtaining feedback
  • Testing the market

You can social or beta publish in a number of ways, but here are a few tools that’ll get your writing in front of readers and your future book buyers during your book development phase.

1. Blogging

Blogging is one of the easiest and most beneficial things you can do. While your blog serves the purpose of testing your subject matter, it also works as a built-in way to market your book before it's published and to start to build traction for your author website. By the time your book actually is ready to publish, you’ll have an established readership ready and waiting on your author website. Try to publish a few blog posts a week, and track results with Google Analytics or another analytical platform. Analytics will tell you how many unique visitors you're getting each day, and how many people are engaged (i.e. commenting or sharing) on your blog. It will also tell you where your readers are coming from, so you can identify your most popular market.

2. Wattpad

Wattpad is a popular sharing site that is growing at a phenomenal rate. It turns reading into a social experience, tapping into a global audience of millions of readers. There’s also inline commenting capabilities that allow readers to share their thoughts and interact with your story while they’re reading it, providing you with valuable feedback.

3. Scribd

With Scribd you can upload your story to share and make it public or private. People can rate it and comment on it, serving as a platform for a virtual writing group. You can even sell your stories or completed books. Scribd also provides a document preview widget that you can embed in your author website.

This chapter was compiled from the following posts on the IngramSpark blog:

“Social and Beta Publishing” by Carla King, Founder of Author Friendly

“Finding a Niche Market for Your Book” by IngramSpark Staff