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Letters from the Editor: On being a non riot-forming writer online, how to get stickers off books, and more

11/20/2019

 

For the Modern Writer, the Personal is Professional

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Writers, there’s a very fine, sometimes blurry, and occasionally altogether nonexistent line between you as a Person and you as a Professional in this industry. 
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It’s an easy line to cross -- or in some cases, trip over very ungracefully. Take this latest bit of beef from Book Twitter, for example.
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Publishing is obsessed with your follower count. Should you be too?

11/6/2019

 

Publishing is obsessed with your follower count.
Should you be too?

What your author platform means for your chances at landing in bookstores
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Let’s talk about platform.

As a writer of nonfiction, It’s a word that you’ll hear all the time when trying to get published — “you need a strong platform if you want your book to do well.” “Your platform is the only way to guarantee publishers will look twice at your book.” Platform is a nonfiction writer’s key to success.”

Eventually you start to get the gist that this is important — and it is! Platform is what sells your books, makes you an attractive prospect to agents and publishers, and keep readers, new and old, engaged with your work. Basically, platform is to nonfiction authors what promise is to fiction authors; it’s the incentive agents and publishers need to take you on.

Publishing industry polymath Jane Friedman explains that when you’re a fiction writer, agents and publishers assess your viability as an author “based on the quality of your manuscript and its suitability for the current marketplace.” When you’re a nonfiction author, however, a big piece of your puzzle is to have a large and loyal enough built-in audience that publishers feel confident your book will find success with the readers you intend it for. Your manuscript is absolutely still important but as it’s often not complete at the time you would be submitting nonfiction proposals, you have to give agents and publishers a good reason to take a chance on you beyond “I promise my book will be good!”. 

In a sense, platform takes precedence over your writing samples during the nonfiction proposal submission process.The goal of a platform is to sell yourself as an author and authority so that your book, when it’s released, has the community and credibility that you’ve built around your name as a giant green flag for readers (AKA buyers). 

For a concrete definition, just think of platform as the infrastructure of your public presence. It includes everything from your social media to your collective body of work to your attendance at workshops and conferences to your professional network, and anything else you do to make yourself visible and accessible to the public.

Given this description, you could get the sense that all a good platform needs is some of Kardashian-grade marketing tactics and an iron will to get people to like (and listen) to you. If you have a certain amount of followers and a big enough name, you’re guaranteed success as a nonfiction writer and the dollars will flow freely...

...And then you hear about situations like Caroline Calloway’s and realize that’s not quite the case.

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