by Suzanne Lieurance
If the word “platform” makes you feel tired before you’ve even started, you’re not alone.
Platform has become one of the most loaded words in the writing world. It conjures follower counts and posting schedules and the exhausting sense that you need to be everywhere at once, performing your writerly self for an audience that may or may not be paying attention.
No wonder so many writers avoid it entirely.
The Difference Between Platform and Presence
But there’s a quieter concept underneath the noise that’s actually worth building: presence. And presence is something any writer can create, regardless of follower count, publication history, or comfort with social media.
A platform is about reach — how many people you can get your work in front of at once. A presence is about depth — whether the people who do encounter you and your work know who you are, trust your voice, and can find you again.
Platform chasing often produces the opposite of what writers want. It creates pressure to produce content for its own sake, to optimize for visibility rather than for the work. Writers who chase platform often end up writing less of what matters and more of what they think will land.
Presence, built slowly and honestly, does something different. It creates a body of work — published pieces, a simple website, maybe a newsletter or a consistent corner of a community — that gives the right readers, editors, and collaborators a way to find you and know what you’re about.
The question to ask isn’t “how do I grow my platform?” It’s “where do I want to be findable, and am I genuinely there?”
Pick one place. Show up there well. Let it be a reflection of your actual writing voice, not a performance of what you think a writer is supposed to look like online.
Presence takes longer to build than a follower count. But it’s also what lasts.
Visibility as a Writer is our theme all month here at Write by the Sea. Read about the June Writing Challenge to see what we’re practicing — and find your starting point.
Suzanne Lieurance is the author of over 40 published books and a transformational Law of Attraction coach for writers who are ready to stop waiting to feel like the real thing. At Write by the Sea, she guides writers through the identity shift that changes everything — not just the writing, but the whole life built around it. She is the publisher of Manifesting Monthly magazine and the host of Monday Morning Manifestors.
