Many authors, understandably, seek to discover if there’s enough interest in their work for them to toil to build a platform. If there is no interest in Devotionals for Grasshopper Farmers Who Crochet, then why go to the trouble and expense?

One, if you discover on your own that exactly fourteen people will buy your devotional, and ten of them are your mother and her friends, that’s a good thing. Better to find out yourself that your book has no audience than to end up with 500 copies of a book that didn’t sell and a publisher who won’t offer a second contract because they are warehousing or remaindering 2,500 copies of said title.

A more likely scenario is that you’ll write a great proposal, with a passionate plea as to why your book should be published today, only to secure rejections from every major traditional publisher.

No problem, you think. I found out that there isn’t enough interest from a publisher before I went to the effort to build a platform. Good news, right?

Wrong.

Because by sending out your work before you could offer a solid platform, you wasted your first impression. That opportunity will never return once it’s spent.

Let’s say an agent does take your project on the merit of the idea and writing. The agent may sell your project. Congratulations!

However, if the agent collects a bunch of kind and lovely rejections, then if you decide to continue working together, the agent will need to take you out a second time with another project. The editor will remember seeing your work and rejecting it before. A great agent can certainly pitch one project after another and pitch your work well so you may land a contract after several attempts. Still, wouldn’t it be nicer to gain a contract early, strengthened by a solid and growing platform?

Only you can decide.