Will Work For PLATFORM by Kim ward

The one word in my writing career that I have heard more than I have heard the word NO, is the word, platform.  Now I’m not talking about groovy shoes worn in the seventies or an apparatus thirty-foot in the air to stand on. The word I’m talking about describes the one thing that agents and publishers will salivate over like a dog licking a bone.  Yes, the who’s who in the writing world likes platform better than a movie, based on a book.

So what is platform and how do you get it? This has been asked since the dawn of the Neanderthal when he did his first cave writing, and the answer still eludes writers to this day. Now before you get as uptight as a tight walker performing on a bum leg, let me state I do have the answer you so desperately seek.

Platform is your world stage. How many people can see you, hear you, know of you, subscribe to you, talk about you, like you, read you, connect with you, and even gossip about you. The bottom line being known is the equivalent to having platform.  

As an agent or publisher you want to know that when a book hits the shelf at the local book store it has sold out before the shelf can be restocked. That means people have to be anticipating your book, know of you and want to read your book.

You must have an extensive email list in which to solicit your potential buyers, access to radio shows, endorsements from those more popular than you , columns, blogs, websites, fan pages, twitter, LinkedIn friends, groups, accolades, interviews, television appearances, you name it. The more exposure you have the more platform you have as well.

It’s a sad but true fact that after friends, family and a handful of acquaintances buy your book the sales will run dry, unless you have platform. It might take you several years to build a platform you can be proud of and agents can admire, but if you play your cards right it will cost you very little, make you as popular as cabbage on St. Patrick’s Day and help you get the book sales your writing deserves.

So if you are going to do anything as a writer, work towards your platform. Get known, become an expert in what you write about and let the world know who you are before you go to print. 

by Kim Ward