Hi Leanne. Good luck with your funding.  First bit of advice I would say is have a plan for how/when you’re going to update and contact people. I spent about two weeks flailing around before I wrapped my brain around the process. As for followers, I would say one thing to start with is follow other authors and books. I’ve found that many will follow me back and a few have been excellent resources.

I haven’t been through this experience yet, but what I’ve heard is you just need to go out to each and every one of them to talk to them about buying your book. Ask them if they’d like to buy it, then go from there.