fbpx
skip to Main Content
When Platforms Collapse: Authors Move To Diversify

When Platforms Collapse: Authors Move to Diversify

Authors who built their audience on TikTok got a harsh reminder on January 17: any platform can disappear overnight, and it is important to diversify. The brief shutdown sent authors scrambling for alternatives, forcing many to rethink their dependence on a single platform. While TikTok returned after twelve hours and received a temporary reprieve, the scare highlighted a bigger issue—Amazon, Meta, and other platforms have also suspended or restricted authors’ accounts without warning, often with little recourse.

ALLi has helped authors fight Amazon bans, but recovery takes time and can mean weeks or months of lost income. The TikTok blackout is just the latest warning sign. Authors need to look for ways to protect their businesses—from repurposing content across multiple platforms to driving sales directly through their own websites. The push for diversification is gaining urgency as many prepare for the next disruption before it happens.

What Happened

On January 17, TikTok went dark for approximately twelve hours, leaving its 170 million US users without access. The blackout followed a U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding a ban on the platform due to national security concerns. While many expected the ban to take time to go into effect, the sudden shutdown caught creators off guard. A message appeared on screens announcing the platform’s inaccessibility, fueling speculation and panic among influencers, brands, and businesses that rely on TikTok for income.

Just two days later, newly inaugurated President Donald Trump issued an executive order granting TikTok a seventy-five-day reprieve, keeping the app operational while negotiations continue. The order prevented immediate penalties but did not remove the looming threat of a forced sale or a permanent ban. Now, speculation is swirling over TikTok’s future, with talks of a potential joint U.S.-Chinese ownership deal or a sale to an American company. Meanwhile, creators remain in limbo, unsure whether they need to fully migrate their businesses elsewhere or if TikTok will survive the latest crisis.

Owning Your Audience and Sale Channels

Diversify

“We can pivot if we have the right mindset,” said Sacha Black. “Allow yourself time to grieve, and then get back up and try again.”

For indie author and entrepreneur Sacha Black, the TikTok blackout didn’t cause panic—it confirmed a strategy she had already put in place. Despite being active on the platform, Black said, “I don’t actually rely on one platform.”

Instead, she has long prioritized diversification, investing more in Instagram, where she employs a social media manager and a team of three to generate content ideas. “I knew the ban was coming,” she said, adding that ALLi’s principles of being wide and independent were ingrained in her from the start. More importantly, her personal experience facing job insecurity early in her career taught her never to rely on a single source of income.

Her first piece of advice to authors is straightforward: repurpose content across multiple platforms.

“There are lots of content repurposing tools you can use,” Black said. She recommends Snaptik.app, which removes TikTok’s watermark so videos can be posted elsewhere without being suppressed. She also uses scheduling software like Later.com and Buffer.com to automatically push content to YouTube and Facebook.

While these platforms don’t drive as much engagement for her as TikTok and Instagram, Black said even a few hundred extra views matter. “Brilliant, that’s two hundred new eyes on my books, for free,” she said. Some videos, she noted, unexpectedly gain traction, reaching thousands of new viewers.

Beyond social media, Black has prioritized directing readers to a platform she controls: her own website. “Any platform can vanish at any point, and we don’t own the follower base or audience base we’ve built there,” she said.

The exception is an author’s website and mailing list, which is why Black has focused on building her Shopify store as a major source of income. “My Shopify is my second biggest income earner, and there are times when it’s getting close to rivalling Amazon,” she said. Her long-term goal is to make direct sales her primary revenue stream.

To reinforce her website’s importance, Black always directs readers there first.

“Stop promoting any other website, period,” she advised. If someone asks where to buy her books, she points them to her site. Only if they complain about postage does she mention other retailers—a rare occurrence, she noted. She also runs physical preorders exclusively through her website and releases those books early, giving readers an incentive to buy direct. “Amazon and the other stores now get my books last,” she said.

Exclusive content has also been a key part of her strategy.

“I have three books in ebook, audio, and paperback that you can only get on my website,” Black said. While she admitted it was daunting to step away from Amazon’s built-in audience, the move has been good for business. Readers frequently ask how to get her novellas, and when she tells them they’re website exclusives, they buy direct. “These won’t be the last products I do this to,” she added.

When TikTok went down, Black’s approach was put to the test. Instead of waiting to see what would happen, she pivoted her strategy. “I managed to get a viral post going,” she said, and it paid off.

“My Shopify had its best sales day in January, and all of the orders were European.” The experience reinforced what she already knew: adaptability and emotional resilience are key. “We can pivot if we have the right mindset,” she said. “Allow yourself time to grieve, and then get back up and try again.”

Ultimately, Black believes that authors who learn how to market their books effectively can carry those skills to any platform. “If you’ve learned how to market your books effectively enough that it converts to sales, then you can apply those techniques to any platform,” she said. The key is to focus on long-term sustainability rather than short-term trends.

Indie Authors on Diversification

Dale Rogers

Diversify

“If the town square goes away, hopefully, people will be able to continue to engage with me on my website,” said Dale Rogers.

New author Dale Rogers is still in the early stages of audience-building and is testing different platforms to see where readers engage most. “Currently, most of my interaction is on Meta,” he said, though he is also working on growing a YouTube audience. Regardless of where readers find him, Rogers ensures everything points back to his website. “I’m a firm believer in documenting everything on my website, even if conversations are happening on a particular platform.”

For Rogers, content distribution is about planting “seeds” and seeing what grows. He copies and pastes key posts across multiple platforms and his WordPress blog to maximize reach. As his audience expands, he plans to make greater use of Patreon and is also exploring subscription models through WooCommerce. “If the town square goes away, hopefully, people will be able to continue to engage with me on my website,” he said.

Pauline Wilson

For Pauline Wilson, a direct connection with readers is critical, but organic growth remains a challenge. “I work hard to try to build my own platform through my website,” she said. Wilson has a newsletter with around 300 subscribers, built mostly through targeted subscriber campaigns, but she has struggled to gain new sign-ups through links in her books.

She maintains a presence on multiple social media platforms but focuses primarily on Instagram and Facebook, always directing readers back to her website when possible. “I guess I just need to keep working on it,” she said, acknowledging that growing an audience outside of major platforms takes time and persistence.

Kevin Partner

Diversify

“My main focus for diversification has been audiobooks,” said Kevin Partner.

While many authors focus on platform diversification, Kevin Partner is looking at media diversification. “My main focus for diversification has been audiobooks—mainly through YouTube and Spotify using Google Play’s AI narration,” he said. Rather than spreading ebooks across multiple retailers, he has prioritized reaching new audiences through different content formats.

Partner uploads audiobooks to YouTube, using a still image as the visual component, and collects a share of the advertising revenue. “Creating the video takes a few minutes,” he said, making it a low-effort, high-potential income stream alongside his primary business in Kindle Unlimited.

Sharon Hague

Sharon Hague sees website traffic as one of the most stable ways to future-proof an author business. “Diversity of social media platforms is one way to go,” she said, but she believes an author’s website offers unique advantages.

“Your personal website designed for business is not a platform that can disappear.”

Diversify

“Your personal website designed for business is not a platform that can disappear,” said Sharon Hague.

While she hasn’t yet fully implemented her diversification strategy, Hague is focused on using social media to funnel readers toward her website, where she controls the sales process. She also sees artificial intelligence as a tool that could bring new business opportunities in the near future.

“With AI increasing business possibilities, there are probably things we haven’t dreamed of just around the corner,” she said.

Kevin McLaughlin

For Kevin McLaughlin, no platform is immune to failure. “Every author is vulnerable to platform failure. All of us are,” he said. He points out that even widely used services such as BookFunnel, Amazon, and Facebook could change their policies or shut down, cutting authors off from essential marketing tools.

His strategy is to minimize risk by having backup plans. “If BookFunnel closed, I would port everything over to StoryOrigin,” he said. If Amazon stopped selling books, he would immediately shift his focus to Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, and Kobo. McLaughlin has already researched alternative ad platforms, including Reddit and Pinterest, in case Facebook ads become unviable. “Any tool we use or business we work with can close,” he said. “There is no such thing as too big to fail.”


Thoughts or further questions on this post or any self-publishing issue?

Question mark in light bulbsIf you’re an ALLi member, head over to the SelfPubConnect forum for support from our experienced community of indie authors, advisors, and our own ALLi team. Simply create an account (if you haven’t already) to request to join the forum and get going.

Non-members looking for more information can search our extensive archive of blog posts and podcast episodes packed with tips and advice at ALLi's Self-Publishing Advice Center.

Share

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *


The reCAPTCHA verification period has expired. Please reload the page.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Latest advice, news, ratings, tools and trends.

Back To Top
×Close search
Search
Loading...