the craft. cross-platform storytelling.
When an author, who has spent so much time on their craft and becoming the best writer they can be, hears they also have to build a platform, they literally go pale in the face and panic ensues. “They don’t want to have to be an influencer, they are a writer.” But the reality here is writers are storytellers and all social media, newsletters, and podcasts are different formats to tell your story.
I get it, it’s daunting. We all would love to live in a world where all that mattered was the caliber of our work. But the world we live in says that whether your book is good or not, a thirteen-year-old with a million followers can get a hold of it and turn it into a BookTok hit (well, things come at you fast because who knows what the future of TikTok is) making your agent, editor and publisher very happy to have you as a part of their team.
My goal here is not to convince you to use social media as things are vastly changing in that landscape anyway, but I do want to talk about the ways in which you can adapt your story to multiple formats to only help the visibility of your work because whether we want to admit it or not, don’t we want people to actually see and consume our work? If not, wouldn’t our stories just live in dusty notebooks in our basement? Until we get the advance that will comfortably afford someone to do these things for us, it’s on us!
So where do you start?
Find out what parts of your story are most adaptable to other formats. What could be a series of tweets? What could you shoot some really cool visuals to? Maybe a part of your story could be a cool limited podcast series. Someone who has done that extremely well outside of the book world is Issa Rae. Remember the show within the show from Insecure? A few seasons had that going and “Looking for Latoya” even became its own limited podcast series. They produced blog content around the show and had an official recap podcast of the show that highlighted each episode. The key here is that all roads pointed back to the show.
Are there elements of your story that may lend themselves to formats outside of your book?
Now as you branch out, it’s important to still have a consistent voice across these platforms. When I wanted to work on some of my own book content, I requested two things, the book’s font and color codes. This way at minimum, there would be consistency visually across any platform that I wanted to continue to tell Tau and Carli’s story. If your additional content is in the voice of the characters, great. If it’s in your voice as the author, great. But maintaining consistency is going to be key because our goal is always to make sure people know the content is connected to you and your story.
How will you maintain your voice consistently through different platforms?
Make sure that you are utilizing each platform for its strengths and not repeating the same story. Auto-posting to other platforms is the enemy. LOL. If you write a long caption for Instagram, it’s going to be cut off on X (Formerly Twitter). I don’t even know what happens on Facebook, but you get my drift. Spend the extra time to post natively on each platform and differentiate the content. For instance, you may start an idea on Instagram that then is more fully fleshed out in your newsletter. You are creative, that creativity doesn’t start and end with your writing, use it in your marketing and promotion as well.
How are you differentiating your content for each respective platform?
You may be saying, Ashley, I am not a marketing professional, why do I have to think about any of this? Well, because your publishing team is going to work with you a few months out from the pub date and a few months after and dassit. If that book doesn’t explode in that time frame, they are going to be onto their next title and you are going to be left trying to figure it out. Much like the music industry, gone are the days of simply being the talent. You have to be as invested in the success of your work as anyone else.
Now, I’m sure these writers may have felt similarly, but here’s a look into a few examples of authors who also learned to tell their stories across platforms:
Elizabeth Acevedo (The Poet X):
Successfully adapted her work between written and audio formats
Uses Instagram to share poetry performances
Leverages YouTube for storytelling workshops
Created educational content around her books for classrooms
Elizabeth Acevedo's Approach:
Leverages her slam poetry background across platforms
Maintains her distinctive voice by treating each platform as a performance space
Uses Instagram Stories to share intimate moments of her writing process
Key Success Factor: She stays true to her poetic roots regardless of platform, adapting the format but not her core artistic identity
Angie Thomas (The Hate U Give):
Actively uses Twitter to extend conversations from her books
Shares behind-the-scenes content about adaptation process
Created teaching guides and discussion materials
Uses Instagram to highlight reader engagement and impact
Angie Thomas's Method:
Uses Twitter to extend real conversations from her books into current events
Maintains authentic dialogue with readers about social justice issues
Shares personal reactions to her book's impact
Key Success Factor: She prioritizes genuine community engagement over promotional content
Common Success Patterns:
They all prioritize authenticity over algorithms
They choose platforms that naturally align with their strengths
They create content that serves their community rather than just promoting their books
They maintain consistent messaging while adapting delivery style
They share their creative process in ways that feel genuine rather than performative
You don’t have to be a world-class marketer to think of ways to tell the story you created through different platforms. Most importantly, you have to start with the things most authentic to you and to your story and spread out from there. I have faith in you. There’s a whole audience of people waiting for you.
Elisabeth Sherman is often on the lookout for freelance writers to take on evergreen assignments for me at http://parents.com. She rarely accepts freelance pitches but if you think you might be a fit to write for the site you can always reach out w/ clips: elisabeth.sherman@dotdashmdp.com.
The Kimbilio Retreat will open for submissions Jan. 31st. New dates, Aug. 11-17, in North Carolina http://wildacres.org.
Submissions are open for WigLeaf for short stories up to 1,000 words. (Closes Jan. 31)
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