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A buzzword came into focus about ten years ago and if you are thinking about writing a nonfiction book, it’s a phrase you need to know about. Platform. Frankly, I’m a little sick of seeing it myself, but it doesn’t seem to be going away. So, let’s get to what it is, and why you need one.
Sometimes it is best to define a term by what it is not. Platform is not your biography. Platform is not a credential. Platform is not your publishing history. Although platform can contain all these things, it is more. Platform is about positioning.
In the book business, marketing is everything. It’s not enough to just get your name into print and onto the cover of a book. For if no one knows about your title, where is your sales potential?
Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on where you are with establishing a platform, it can either be your friend or your enemy. But platform is important to agents. Platform is your ability to bring readers to your work. Now doing that may seem like a monumental feat and for beginning writers, it will be problematic. And, of course, some writers have better platforms than others. Assuming you are not a celebrity, and assuming you do not have a movie coming out, or a song rising on the charts, platform will need to be built from the ground up.
Your Own Questionnaire
First, let’s take a look at who you are. You have lived X number of years. Do you have experience in some particular field of work? Are you a leader in your industry? What type of training have you had? Do you own your own company? Do you possess some type of knowledge that is needed by a lot of people? Or is there an experience that is fairly singular to who you are? What about YOU is extraordinary?
If you can answer “Yes” to just one of the questions posted above, you are on your way.
In order to help you along, I will tell you about parts of my platform. I have a degree in criminal justice. I am a trained forensic artist. That means, I do something a little different than even other forensic scientists—I am capable of building a clay bust from a skull, for forensic identification.
In another vein, I raised a capuchin monkey for Helping Hands. “Ziggy” Campbell, my little monkey daughter, was with my family for thirteen years, and is now a helper-companion for a quadriplegic. Both of these talents/interests/disciplines are a little atypical, and that’s what sets me apart from other writers. For this reason, I decided to write a lot about forensic science, criminal law, and primates.
Singular You
Brainstorm your own knowledge and experience for your unique gems. Make a list of the things you know how to do if that helps to get you started:
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Now some of you may say, “I don’t have anything extraordinary or unusual happening in my life.” My response to that will be: follow your passion. Yes, make something happen in your life. If you have a hidden desire to paint scenes on the side of a community bank, see what steps you can take to make that happen. Do you know how to make candles but want to move into something more interesting? Try making busts from wax. (A whole museum, Madame Tussaud’s, was set up on that principle. See: http://www.madame-tussauds.com/)
Now you don’t have to swim with the sharks to experience sea life, but it’s not a bad start!
Wisdom Comes with Doing
Okay, let’s continue. Now that you’ve found your singular wisdom or experience, do you have a platform? No, sorry to say, you have a beginning. You have an unusual talent that you can mine for stories, but you still need more. What’s that? You need experience. Yes, only by continuing to do what it is that you do best, will you gain wisdom. Something that can be shared with a reader who may also have the same dreams that you did. You have to know your subject inside and out. Can you go back to college to gain more knowledge? Can you start your own classes, workshops, or teach this subject? Can you keep a log or diary of this activity over an extended period of time? Can you find an area about your subject that is unique, or find some aspect that no one else is doing currently? By examining and living the ins and outs of your experience, you will gain wisdom. And wisdom, advice, and lessons, are what you ultimately want to share.
Extend Yourself
Moving along now, aren’t we? Okay, now let’s say you have your niche and you are beginning to establish a reputation for knowing this activity, mastering this trade, or learning this special knowledge. Now what you need to do is: begin to take this into the world. Test the waters. Find others who need this information. One simple way of doing this is to teach your specialty at your community college. Colleges are always looking for interesting topics for adult education courses. Another way you can find interested parties is by doing speaking engagements. Start small: talk to local rotary, Kiwanis, or women’s club. Gain an audience by doing repeat performances, each time seeking out a larger audience.
All right! you have your subject down-pat. You’ve gotten lots of experience and have kept notes about your journey. You’ve started to take this information and disburse it to your community. Now you need to use the media. I hear a lot of you going, “Argh, how am I going to do that? I don’t have any connections.” And my response is: one phone call, one article, one radio interview at a time. Perhaps you can begin by doing outreach. If you can teach young people your skill and, if it benefits their lives, your local newspaper reporters will jump at the chance to get your story. Remember, think local first—then, branch out. One successful radio show interview may beget another, and another, and so on. (Before you leave the studio, ask the producer if he knows of other places that might be interested in your story. If you did a bang-up job for him, he will not be offended.) Do this with all forms of media you can muster engagements with, and soon, like me, you will become the “Monkey Lady” in your region, or the “Party Game Expert” for your area, and folks will be reading about you and contacting you for themselves.
Stats and Data
Okay, you are doing a good job stroking the media and are beginning to establish your presence. Begin to keep numbers. How many speaking engagements have you done? How many radio or TV talk shows? How many classes or different groups of people have participated in your offerings? You will need these numbers because now, you finally have a potential audience.
Now take that even further, stretch yourself. Milk this audience attention by starting your own newsletter. Whether it’s paper or virtual Internet space, get a following. Collect a database of people who have listened to your message and want to hear more from you. If you get enough moxie—courage combined with inventiveness—you can start your own Internet radio show, publish your own e-newsletter, build web sites, and collect mailing lists of friends, readers, and fans. (And a special secret here: Folks buy books from authors they have seen and like.)
When you have created an enterprise, an audience, and a vehicle for distribution, then, and only then, can you say you have a “platform”—something every good literary agent looks for in a potential client, who has a nonfiction book proposal, and needs representation. In other words, you are not only an interesting writer, but you have done most of the groundwork and are a catch.
So get your thinking cap on. What about you can you build on and share with others who will want more of whatever it is you’ve got going? And then have fun. This is an exploration into who you are, and, better still, who you can become.
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About The Author:
Andrea Campbell is the author of ten nonfiction books
on a variety of topics. Become the next John Grisham. Write murder mysteries using her insightful book,
Making Crime Pay.
Visit Andrea's website. To subscribe to her free,
bi-monthly newsletter Soup's On, send an email to: campbell@arkansas.net and put "Author's Newsletter" in the subject head.
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