There are few things more frustrating to aspiring authors than the requirement they have a significant national following and robust “author platform” before their book is considered by an agent or publisher. After all, isn’t the book supposed to help create that?
It is like needing extensive work experience to get a job, but you need to get a job to get experience. Or you need to be an expert pilot before we let you into flight school.
The first thing to remember is that publishing has always been this way. It has always favored the well-connected and already-famous to get the first consideration as new authors.
Years ago, we used estimated number of radio listeners, TV viewers, circulation of a magazine or newsletter, or for pastors, size of church membership or ministry to determine the extent of author notoriety. These days, because social media involvement is relatively free of cost and available to anyone with a keyboard, agents and publishers use it as a quick and easy test to determine the extent of author-fame.
Here is what all this means for you:
If you really want to write and have a story burning inside you, order a website URL for your name, establish a social media presence and get to work on blogging and building your platform. The reason to begin with platform is that the cart is officially before the horse.
As proof, this press release just came to my attention: (with tongue firmly inside my cheek)
At a press conference this morning in Muscatine, Iowa, the president of the association representing all towed and pulled carriages, wagons and carts announced that the association needed to adjust to the new reality of the social media world of the 21st Century.
In a stunning reversal of their long-standing policy requiring that all carriages, wagons and carts be pulled by horses, Wilbur “Mr. Ed” Schnookwalder, president of the International Association of Pulled Things (IAPT) stated in a press release, “We finally had to admit that our friends in publishing have redefined the world to such an extent that we needed to follow suit. After much deliberation, we have determined that the cart is officially before the horse.”
So, there you have it. Proof is in the fake press release.
Publishers need authors to carry the lion’s share of the marketing and promotional load for their books, so you need to be armed and ready to take on that responsibility at the outset. There are some differences between fiction and non-fiction in the manner you create your author platform, but the basics are the same.
So again, if you really want to write and have a story burning inside you, order a website URL, establish a social media presence and get to work on blogging and building your platform. Spend as much time on your platform as you do writing your book. In fact, maybe spend all your time initially on the platform. Just like you would get training to write, development of the author platform is preparation for the book.
Book publishing is still risky business, be it traditional or indie, but the common thread to success in either is gathering together a group of people who want to buy your book before you publish it.
We can all agree that it seems entirely counter intuitive, but remember, the cart is officially and forever before the horse.
Death, taxes and author platforms…they aren’t going anywhere.
The Joy of a Client Christmas Card List
Very good advice, and I hope that people are listening with an open heart.
I found that blogging has sharpened the message of my writing in a way that storytelling never could – once I found my blogging “mission”.
Originally, I looked at it in a sort of scatterbrained way…writing about “Christian stuff”, but mainly about how it affected ME.
Ho-hum.
The I backed into Christian marriage and relationships, and things started to pick up. Now I’m firmly identified as a Christian marriage blogger, and I’m being asked when my first “marriage book” will come out. (In January.)
It’s been an odd journey for a former security contractor whose training was not in cooperation, and whose primary negotiation technique incorporated Leupold optics.
The huge advantage of blogging is that it’s a three-times-a-week writing sample; over 150 chances per year to put my writing style (and thus my “personal” style) into the eye s and hands of potential readers. Facebook and Twitter can’t do this; I use them to support the blog, and to invite people to sample it.
If I had tried to be a writer first, I would have missed so much!
Your experience is similar to that of a church pastor. They start out communicating something on a regular basis (sermons) and then over time, their style, focus, approach take shape. Also, they learn the unique (or not-so-unique) needs of the church body.
Like you say, if they would have started with a book, they probably would have missed so much!
Good to know I’m on the right track, even if I do have a long way to go! It feels like such an uphill battle sometimes, with so many things pulling us down instead of helping us up. But I’ve got to believe there’s a tipping point and that I’m on my way there.
And He has been, He is, and will remain faithful throughout the whole process.
Thank you for the insight! Now to figure out how to build a cart… and maybe someday get a unicorn/pegasus to pull it forward…
…or PUSH the cart forward!
Oh… Right! I guess building a bejeweled chariot instead of a cart is out of the question now… Still having trouble picturing how the unicorn pushes, considering its horn. Oh, the problems fiction writers have to contend with…
I was going to post a reply that a cart pushed by a unicorn shouldn’t stop quickly, but I felt like it is was inappropriate for our company blog and decided not to bring it up.
Wait…did I just hit the “Post Comment” button?
Oops.
Can’t stop laughing!
Thank you. I needed a reason to laugh today. 🙂
You’ve got me thinking, Dan. I did begin blogging before finishing my second book. I’ve come to enjoy it, and I believe it’s helping me learn to write more transparently, as well as helping me find my voice as a writer. I wouldn’t have expected those side benefits.
I’ve also come to know some other people through their comments. My hope is that I’m focusing on readers rather than on other writers. This whole building a platform business is hard work. I’m hoping it will pay off whenever I am finally published.
I’m going to remember: the cart is before the horse. Such an odd (but accurate!) word picture. 🙂
Good advice, Dan. I was talking about this with a good friend, and we came to the conclusion that I’d have to devote a significant amount of time to author platform. It feels counterintuitive because I focused a lot on writing craft, but in today’s world both are important skills.
This was an essential post to focus and encourage us in the right direction. Thanks Dan. Super enjoyed the responses also – still chuckling over the unicorn.
Too funny, and sadly true. Sometimes I feel like a carnival hawker.
Blogging has forced me to draft, write and revise-revise-revise something publishable once a week. It is time consuming, but I enjoy revising. I could piddle, tinker, and tweak forever. Blogging forces me click that post button. I hope some day to be faster at it, but for now, it is what it is since I still have a day job. Thanks for reiterating what I am reading elsewhere about this important part of the process.