Blisscraft Life With Christina Katz

Now that traditional publishing has tightened its belt, nonfiction writers are looking for a new finish line, an alternative to a full-length, traditionally published book.

For years, I have been coaching writers to go from beginner to book deal, and some of them have even managed, usually over the course of several years, to get a book published.

However, the problem with working with writers on such a distant, difficult goal is that it takes a pretty patient, practiced writer to go the distance.

Luckily, I know some patient and practiced writers. Yet imagine how excited I am to be able work with these same patient and hard working writers and help them micro-publish themselves, instead of having to wait for gatekeeper approval. It’s pretty awesome to be able to help them take their careers to new depths and heights, all without having to wait or jump through hoops.

Of course, there are plenty of hoops to jump through in any kind of publishing, and micro-publishing your own work is no exception. However, now, writers can finally publish faster, with many of the same benefits of the old ways, with many new benefits that I did not foresee when I decided to create my first micro-publishing class.

I’ve done a lot of really good work over the past ten years that I am pretty proud of. I’ve struck upon some educational discoveries that have helped hundreds of writers become more successful. But Micro-publishing For Mom Writers may be my finest class yet.

This is an advanced class for seasoned nonfiction writers who already have platforms. I have zero interest in working with anyone less prepared than this (besides, they would never be able to hit the deadlines).

But if you give me the right writer working with the right topic at the right time in her career—then, dang, the process is totally awesome.

How do I know?

Well, the results are in from the first class and here’s what the students had to say (I have included links so you can check out their e-books):

The process of self-publishing is fraught with doubts, questions, and uncertainty. Christina Katz to the rescue! In a six-week course, she guides students to the completion of a saleable e-book. Along the way, she provides invaluable guidance on everything from theme to content to pricing. Writers who are ready to take the self-publishing plunge and want wise counsel, encouragement, and support—take this course!  ~ Malia Jacobson LINK

Once again Christina has found a way to motivate and inspire writers into creating their own piece of expertise. It’s a stripped down, no holds barred, approach to moving a tiny seed of an idea into something that is ready to be self-published. Christina manages to keep the class above the hype of self-publishing and allows the space for her students to grow as writers.  ~ Krysty Krywko LINK

Christina delivers again! Micro-Publishing for Mom Writers is awesome. With Christina’s well-executed curriculum and guidance I was able to draft, write, publish, market, and sell my first e-book shortly after the end of class!  ~ Judy M. Miller LINK

Christina’s lessons not only help you identify your specialty and write your e-book, they also help you create a polished, professional end project that you’ll be proud to put your name on and market.  ~ Cindy Hudson LINK

And coming soon: three more student e-books to launch before the New Year.

If you are taking classes with me, I hope you will set your sites on Micro-publishing for Mom Writers. So you can find out why students feel like this:

Christina, thank you. The clarity and focus of my writing that has resulted from working with you, has made the past six weeks among the most important of my career. ~ Dylan Klempner

Stay tuned!

This is part three, in a three-part post, in which I attempt to answer the question:

Are your voice and your platform dynamic the same thing?

If you have already read the first post in this series, where I talked about voice and the second post in this series where I talked about platform dynamic, they by now, you realize that voice and platform are not at all the same thing.

I say “not at all” to clear up any confusion like: Yes, but isn’t your voice KIND OF like your platform dynamic?

Nope, it’s not kind of like it.

Your voice is the expression of who you are as a writer and is a tool you flex to suit various forms and formats. Your voice is the expression of all that you have written and all that you currently write, wielded skillfully to articulate whatever you are attempting to say.

Your platform dynamic is similarly holistic. It encapsulates and draws on all that the writer has ever written and done, however the comparison stops there.

You don’t have to consciously choose to have a voice. You already have one. You were born with a voice and it is likely coming through whether you realize it or not.

Writers usually recognize the power of voice, and turn it up and down to suit their genres and readers, as I discussed in the first post of this series.

We all have also likely encountered writers who are prone to making too much of their voices, to the point where the effect becomes self-conscious. This just shows that when you mess with voice too much, instead of just letting it happen, you can muck it up and this impacts reader trust.

When it comes to voice, appropriateness, tone and volume are all. You use your voice when you are writing and when you are supporting your writing and when you are just living. Embrace your voice as the instrument it is. Learn to use it and you will grow to trust it and wield it wisely. But don’t expect your voice to be the temple where we are expected to worship, because that’s just taking voice too far.

On the other hand, platforms rarely happen by accident. And they should be constructed and launched in conscious ways that make the most of a writer’s strengths and past successes. That’s why, when I wrote my second book, Get Known Before The Book Deal, we chose the subtitle, Use Your Personal Strengths To Grow An Author Platform. I fought for that subtitle and I’m glad I did. Because your platform is not just about your strengths, it’s about what you decide to do with them.

Therefore to understand your platform dynamic, you need to be aware of your strengths and you need to channel them in conscious ways that support the overall success of your writing career.

Your platform dynamic is not merely your writing, it’s your writing and everything else that you offer, the way you uniquely offer it. It’s what you do, how you do it, why you do it, whom you do it for, when you do it, where you do it, and whom you do it.

This is why, when all of the other writers in your genre are following one trend, you should buck that trend and turn inward and proceed in the way that is appropriate to your integrity.

Your platform dynamic springs from your most precious values. It do not suggest you merely start doing things because they are fashionable or even if they worked for another writer.

As a writer, you have to follow the dance of your creative spark in order to succeed. And as a writer with a ever-evolving platform, you have to consciously build step-by-step, day-by-day, growing stronger and more visible as your grow.

You may use your platform to establish a niche, develop a community, become a media mogul, or create connections. And all of these things are conscious choices that go way above and beyond a writer who posses a strong voice because you will use your platform dynamic to create the results you envision.

Certainly a writer’s voice comes into play in honing in on a platform dynamic but it’s not nearly enough information to go the distance. There is much more work to be done, and there is much interplay among the various steps, as I have described in my forthcoming book, The Writer’s Workout.

So, voice typically comes before platform dynamic, and voice can inform platform dynamic, but you can’t expect your voice to do all the heavy lifting in helping you become visible and stay viable in the marketplace. To expect this would be to put too much pressure on your wonderfully unique, but also delicate instrument.

Let your platform dynamic lead instead. It’s how you do anything and how you do everything. It’s who you uniquely are as a writing professional, and that reputation proceeds you everywhere you go anyway. Trust it and it will trust you back.

Questions about voice vs. platform dynamic? Put them in the comments and I will answer them in a future post.

~ Photo by sean dreilinger

This is part two, in a three-part post, in which I will attempt to answer the question:

What is a writer’s platform dynamic?

First of all, I have always said that your platform is what you DO with you abilities.

It’s not your potential, it’s not what you are gonna to do, it’s what you currently offer.

We, readers, often arrive at the conclusion of what you currently do, writer, by analyzing what you have done to get here, with whom, how, etc. and by what you show us to demonstrate what you have done.

But in the final analysis, at least according to your readers, the platform that you build is the evidence that you actually are as good at doing what you say you do as you think you are (or don’t think you are, as the case may be).

Authentic confidence, the kind of confidence that comes from doing something consistently well, is a major factor in your platform development. A lack of confidence characterizes a weak platform. Authentic confidence is clearly evident in a hearty, healthy platform, so long as the writer does not confuse confidence with ego.

I can tell you from working with writers for ten years, most aspiring voices do not initially possess authentic confidence. We each write our way to authentic confidence (I will say this 10,000 times this year, so get used to it). Confidence is hard-won, comes from actual experience, and you can’t fake it.

To draw on some of my work in my forthcoming book, The Writer’s Workout:

Think of your platform dynamic the way that Michelangelo thought of finding a sculpture in a block of marble. Your platform dynamic is in you, underneath a whole bunch of everything else. Your job is to chip away, brush away, and clear away everything else until you discover the most essential expression of what you offer.

~ Season 3: Fall, Chapter 187: Set Your Identity Free

However I also discuss the way your platform dynamic is not static (that’s why it’s called a dynamic, after all).

The dynamic value that you offer can be perceived and sensed by others. Other people may be able to describe it better than you can.

It’s not merely the value you deliver; it’s also how and why you deliver whatever you offer.

~ Season 2, Summer: Chapter 162: Identify Your Dynamic

Finally, besides being essential to who you are and what you do, besides being vital and evolving and growing stronger over time as you nurture it, your dynamic needs to be consciously focused. If you are not conscious of your dynamic or if you are not consciously focusing it, you might take it for granted, dissipate it, and then it won’t be as clear and helpful to others.

Come back Monday for the compare and contrast on…

Are your voice and your platform dynamic the same thing?

One month from today I will kick off the launch of my third book for Writer’s Digest, The Writer’s Workout. Feel free to check it out! And if you pre-order, hang on to your receipt because it’s your backstage pass to my Global Launch Party right here on December 6th. Hope to see you there!

~ Photo by sean dreilinger

Is there a difference between a writer’s voice and a writer’s platform dynamic?

Yes, there is a difference.

There is often a difference between a writer’s voice and his or her platform dynamic because writers are so much more than our voices these days.

We are a dynamic force of leadership, entrepreneurship, and technological innovation as well as fitting the old fashioned description: writer, or a person who writes.

But don’t dismiss the seemingly old-fashioned job description, because writers write, first and foremost, and everything else, including voice and platform dynamic, emerge from the writing that we do.

You may not have heard the term “platform dynamic” before, because I coined it. And I’m going to keep talking about it until everybody thoroughly understands it. But I doubt we are going to get there in one blog post because it’s a complex topic. And one that is thoroughly covered and put into context in my forthcoming book, The Writer’s Workout.

And, I guess once again this is going to take a few posts to cover thoroughly, so I’ll break it down into three posts. Here we go!

What is a writer’s voice?

To quote John Schultz, the creator of The Story Workshop Method at Columbia College Chicago from his book, Writing From Start To Finish:

Voice is the articulation of all perceptions in verbal expression, written and oral, including the so-called nonverbal which we want to get into writing too. Voice is the expression of the whole person, an extension of speech, an extension of the body.

I agree with Shultz about this definition of voice. He was one of my professors in grad school and I have a lot of respect for him.

However, the way I conceive of the writer’s voice is a not only as an expression of the whole writer, but also as related to the particular context in which the writer’s voice is heard.

Therefore, I have two definitions of voice. One is the writer’s voice, which is holistic yet evolving with the writer, as the writer changes and grows.

And the other definition of voice reflects the ways that a writer consciously changes her voice in response to the context in which the writer’s voice appears.

According to this definition, I have a voice across mediums that most could recognize. But let’s not be too quick to pronounce me monotonous: my voice also has a mercurial aspect to it.

For example my voice in my blog vs in my books is not quite the same. Have you ever noticed? (Me neither, my readers had to point it out to me.) It’s the same speaker (me) but my tone in my books has a more patient, kind, and helpful tone. That’s what readers like. And ditto in my curriculum writing.

But in my blog my voice has more urgency. More calls to action. More “wake-up-and-smell-the-coffee, writers” tone to it.

That’s because this is a different context than a book, therefore my voice shifts into what we could call blogger voice.

Perhaps the shift is imperceptible to some, but it’s quite obvious to others. And people are responding to both in different ways. In my books and classes, folks are using my work as tools to focus on their own work. They don’t want to focus on me, and I don’t want them to focus on me.

But in my blog, as you may have noticed, I would like a little more of the reader’s attention. And the shift is subtle but it works for me.

What do you think? Do YOU have a voice that is characteristic of your body of work overall? What about in various media? Do you also have an “online voice” that is slightly different? Is this different than your speaker voice? If so, in what way or ways?

This is an interesting topic. I think we should discuss it because I have even noticed that I even change my voice slightly as I switch social media tools. It’s also different in my blog and my e-zine. How about you?

Come back tomorrow and we’ll talk about the definition of a writer’s dynamic.

Then, on Monday, we will do some comparing and contrasting of the voice and dynamic, in case the differences are not utterly clear.

Hope to see you then!

~ Photo by sean dreilinger

I like NaNoWriMo.

For one thing, I heard the creator, Chris Baty, speak at Tools of Change for Publishing a few years back, and I feel that he has good intentions for writing productivity.

For another, I said in three of my last four posts that writers need to put writing at the center of their careers and NaNoWriMo helps you do just this.

Also, NaNoWriMo is not just for novelists anymore. Any writer can use the premise behind NaNo to accomplish whatever goal they want to accomplish in thirty days.

Think about what big goal you might be able to accomplish in 30 days if you broke it down into 30 steps and then attempted to do it.

Got any ideas?

Once you do, here’s 21 tips for getting your work done alongside the rest of your busy life:

1. Up and at ’em! Get up earlier (or go to bed later).
2. Exponential productivity. Consider your most productive time of day and work then.
3. Keep it simple. Don’t make a big “Look-What-I’m-Doing!” festival out of your work. Just feel good about getting it done each day.
4. Stay grounded. Share your satisfaction with getting your work done in a low-key way. Hopefully, it’s contagious.
5. Choose support wisely. Talk to supportive people about your writing success, but don’t mention it to people who have historically proven incapable of cheering you on towards your creative goals.
6. Steer clear of “Crazy-makers.” Short definition: folks who interfere with you getting your work done. Just stay away from them for 30 days. It’s good practice.
7. Team up. The team you want to join is the most focused, committed, productive team. Take care of your own emotional needs.
8. Don’t get fanatical. Be of NaNoWriMo without becoming a NaNo maniac. If NaNoWriMo takes over your whole life, your friends and family might start getting annoyed.
9. Be as social or anti-social as you like. Don’t bow to peer pressure. Trust your gut in all things. If adding writing a novel to your daily routine is as much as you can manage, it’s enough. You can make the decision daily to suit your comfort level and needs.
10. Balance your act. Recognize that big writing goals require communication of your intentions and needs, while still requiring you to be mindful of other’s goals and needs. It’s all a big balancing act—so keep your balance.
11. Have a rough, flexible outline. Remember, that it’s not written in stone. Play with it as you write.
12. Think in scenes. Write the scene or chapter you really want to write today. Who says you have to write the darn thing in order? Nobody. That’s who.
13. Break it down. Break down the things you want to write into 30 parts. Start each section freshly each day to accomplish the maximum number of drafts.
14. Break it out. When you “accidentally” create a new direction in your WIP, just break it out into a new section on your list, jot down what you know you want to say, and get back to what you are working on today.
15. Update your progress. Once a week look over your outline again and tweak it as needed.
16. Be a pro, this might get published. Start considering yourself a writing professional as soon as possible, because if you are working steadily towards a big writing goal, you are acting like one.
17. Check it off. Have a method for noting what you’ve drafted in your outline that feels festive to you. (Gold stars, anyone?)
18. Carry it over. Once you discover you can get and sustain writing momentum, start asking yourself why you don’t stay as productive and engaged the rest of the year. Start to consider that maybe you can!
19. Consider this a practice writing workout. Think about the marathoner. How does he get and stay in shape? It’s all about the daily workouts. So is this.
20. Make NaNo-think part of your daily life. What do you want to keep and what do you want to leave behind? You will know when you are done.
21. Enjoy the writing ride! Whatever you are writing, whether you “win” or not, you are learning things about your creative capacities and they are worth their weight in gold. Walk away with a clearer understanding of what makes your creativity hum, and you will definitely win.

Happy writing productivity, writers!

• • •

I am a veteran journalist, author and coach with over a decade and a half of experience and a wealth of techniques to share. I am focused on making the world a saner, more expressive place. I help folks become more creative for personal enjoyment, professional development and transformational growth. Whether you are a professional creative or hope to become one some day, I can help you embrace your personal strengths, explore your creative possibilities, and evolve incrementally into your most inspiring self. If you are ready to achieve creative consistency in your life and career, email me about monthly coaching calls. To learn more about increasing your creative confidence, please check out my online school. Stay tuned for ways to save money by becoming a Beta User for my next new course by subscribing to The Prosperous Creative. And don’t forget to get these blog posts delivered to your inbox, so you never miss a post. If you appreciate my work—school, products, blog and social media posts—you are welcome to make a contribution of any size at any time. Thank you for your support!

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In Thursday’s and Friday’s posts last week, I answered the first two in a series of three questions from @Porter_Anderson about the interplay between platform, timing, and genre.

In the first post, I emphasized that if you are a professional writer then writing goes in the center of your career no matter what. If you sell words that you write in any way shape or form—and yes, I also mean if you “sell” them for free, as in a blog—then writing is the heart in your career’s body.

In the second post, I emphasized that no matter what kind of writer you are, you still need a platform. If you spend any amount of time online, you will no doubt encounter lots of debate devoted to the topic of, “Yes, but I’m an XYZ type of writer, so I don’t need to worry about platform, right?”

Not so! Every writer will need a platform sooner or later. In fact, most freelancers benefit from cultivating a platform over time. So a freelancer who might write an e-book or book some day, should be establishing and growing a platform while meeting deadlines now.

A future novelist, who is still working on flash fiction or short stories, can also benefit from cultivating a platform now.

And the same applies to the future memoirist, who is writing and selling personal stories.

You don’t have to have published something long to start building your platform, and it will probably only help to start publishing some short pieces in the meantime.

Part three of Porter’s question last week brought up the issue of how long is all of this going to take?

I expect he meant how long until bestsellerdom? But maybe not. Whether you fancy yourself the next bestseller waiting to happen or a writer of slow and steady gains, here’s how long it’s going to take…ready? It’s going to take the rest of your life.

You want your writing career to belong to you, don’t you? You don’t want to be one of those flash-in-the-pan writers, who scores one big hit and then disappears to write the elusive next big hit, never to be heard from again, do you?

There is no fairytale ending for writers that resembles the latest media story of rosy and impossibly easy publishing success. No matter how much you want to believe that the fairy tale is going to happen for you and, even if it does, you still have to run your writing career as a business…tomorrow.

For every writer who is making millions on the richest writer list, there are thousands of writers who are stridently resistant to aligning earning with their words. And those starving writer-artists of today are still going to be starving tomorrow.

More than anything, the starving artist mentality cuts you off from the myriad of possibilities for selling your words today—and the possibilities for earning have become more multitudinous, not less. So don’t cripple your future earnings with an old-fashioned publishing success fantasy. Don’t separate writing from your ability to earn. Don’t sacrifice everything today for an uncertain future tomorrow. Align your behavior today with the outcomes you hope to achieve tomorrow.

When you keep everything in alignment from the beginning, you don’t need to make adjustments later. If you pretend to be one thing—a blogger who doesn’t care about earning money, for example—you risk being perceived as a hypocrite when you suddenly shift to a writer who actually does care about making money. (Besides, we knew you cared all along.)

Selling ourselves as prosperous professionals is as challenging for writers as keeping writing at the center of our careers (so many distractions!) and embracing platform development (because we’d like to be the overnight success exception rather than the slow and steady career build that is the real story behind 99 percent of the successes we hear about).

Your writing career done right is like a slow-roasted meal. The flavors blend, the spices intermingle, and the repast you eventually serve with a flourish is deeply nourishing and satisfying for the reader.

But if you scramble for shortcuts to success, make too big of a deal about your early efforts without realizing that there is still more to do, or don’t appreciate your own contributions enough to analyze your natural dynamic and perceive what else you might have to offer today, you will likely struggle with yourself and alienate your potential readers instead of keeping your focus on serving the reader and drawing more readers in.

When you put writing at the center of your career and get busy building your platform (not just talking about building one), you clock in for the long-haul of slow and steady learning and earning. Then you can make sturdy, sensible business decisions.

Publishing possibilities abound, not just tomorrow, but also today.

These have been fun questions to answer and have already lead to more questions from readers. The next question I’ll answer comes from Leigh Ramsey on my Facebook page. She said:

Thank you for this encouragement. I needed these exact words today as I gradually see my dynamic emerging. I struggle to see it in myself and therefore rely on the reflection I see in the comments I get from “fans” (‘You inspire me to be and do more;’ ‘I love that you just go for the gusto.’) I find more and more that my role is one of champion. I want to see people (women especially) embrace life and be the best them that they can be and eat up all that life has to offer. Thanks again for playing the role of ‘auto-focus’ for me today, further fine-tuning my direction.

And then she asked:

Christina, from what I’m reading from Part One (and Two) and intuiting, it seems that you’d say an author’s dynamic and her voice are different. Dynamic seems to me “the whole package” of the writer, from his public appearances and online presence to the platforming issues, much more so than voice. (And voice would have to come way before dynamic in this kind of framework.) Am I misreading your thoughts?

Leigh is mistaking my message somewhat. So I’ll answer her questions in detail on Thursday. If you would like to keep the discussion going, send me your questions in the comments or at christina at christina katz dot com.

I have a lot more to say about all of these topics (and more!) in my forthcoming book, The Writer’s Workout. Now is your chance to pre-order so you can be among the first to receive a copy before the New Year. 🙂

If you would like to get to work sooner, please check out my first two books, Get Known Before the Book Deal and Writer Mama. More about all of my books here.

Thanks again to Porter Anderson for the spotlight and the questions and to Jane Friedman for hosting Porter’s column, Writing On The Ether.

~ Grand Canyon by ♀Μøỳαл_Bгεлл♂_BACK_FROM_PRAGUE

My 2012 Class Schedule is now posted through July 2012. I work primarily with mom writers because that’s my specialty, but if this shoes does not fit you, look for new self-study classes coming soon for all types of writers across a variety of my specialty topics.

Here’s what you need to know about my classes that is new in 2012:

No price hikes. I didn’t raise my class prices even though my jaw hits the floor every time I go grocery shopping. I raised prices in August of this year, so how about we give price hikes a break with the holidays coming? (Nothing I can do about the rest of the economy, unfortunately.)

• Writing & Publishing The Short Stuff
• Discover Your Specialty & Launch Your Platform
• Pitching Practice: Write Six Queries In Six Weeks
• Micro-publishing for Mom Writers

I am now offering all four of my classes each time I teach. This means that the class sizes will be smaller, but I’ve noticed that students do better the smaller the class size, so this is a purposeful change. Also, many of my former students are in different phases of career growth and I finally got tired of them saying they wished the class that they wanted was starting sooner rather than later. Well, no more! You’ll see all the classes you want to take each time, so go ahead and take ’em. (I am always happy to discuss timing of enrollment and payment plans with former students, so get in touch if this a concern.) Of course, new students are also welcome to contact me at any time at christina at christina katz dot com.

Classes will turn around on Tuesdays and Thursdays instead of Wednesdays. I am sure this will be no big deal but I’m saying it anyway so that continuing students can make a mental note of it.

I will continue offering scholarships in 2012. I’ve granted thousands of dollars of merit-based career development scholarships since 2006. Today, I offer two need-based scholarship for two classes respectively: Writing & Publishing The Short Stuff and Discover Your Specialty & Launch Your Platform. Next round of scholarships submissions starts on Saturday, December 3rd. Please watch this blog for details.

Please contact Abigail Green directly about her classes. Last, but definitely not least, I have thoroughly enjoyed hosting Abigail Green and her essay writing classes over the past several years. Abby has worked with many of my former students to their delight and publication success and has generously referred her students to my classes. So this change is no reflection on her absolute professionalism and teaching excellence. I am necessarily streamlining my focus to make way for a vigorous schedule in the upcoming year.

Please continue supporting Abby’s teaching and writing by e-mail subscribing to her blog Abby Off The Record now.

My classes have been growing and evolving alongside my writing career for the past ten years. If you would like to hear what my one-time and long-term students have to say about working with me, click here.

Look forward to working with you or continuing to work with you!

Yesterday, I answered the first in a series of three questions from @Porter_Anderson about the interplay between platform, timing, and genre.

In yesterday’s post, I focused on the importance of putting writing at the center of your career and letting nothing else become as central.

As if to echo everything I said, yesterday one of my Dream Team students remarked to our group,

With the increased volume of writing I’ve been doing, I’ve noticed that I’m able to get focused quicker and work a little more efficiently. It seems that writing begets writing.

And this is exactly my point. As Kelly said, writing begets writing. I’ve said the same a bunch of different ways in a bunch of different books and taught this principle over and over in my classes over the past ten years.

So, if you want to be a writer and you are not making writing central, your career probably won’t be taking off any time soon. However, it WILL gain momentum once you consistently make writing central.

My students are often surprised at how much momentum they can gain in a relatively short time of concentrated focus on writing when they hunker down and stay with writing and submitting their work consistently.

This is the same reason that NaNoWriMo works so well for some fiction writers. It’s amazing sometimes what you can accomplish with a deadline and some sustained focus.

So if you want to be a writer, put writing at the center of your workday. I think this is fairly straightforward, but it still needs to be said and put into action. (And this is, I’m sure not surprisingly, a central focus of my forthcoming book, The Writer’s Workout.)

So enough about yesterday. Today, I want to discuss why I think too much focus on what kind of writer you are is not helpful to most writers as many online discussions seem to indicate it is.

The publishing industry labels writing into categories for ease of discoverability by the reader. And certainly, most writers who write professionally are clear whether on not the current project they are working on is fiction or nonfiction, poetry or memoir, etc.

However, when it comes to platform, there is no point in mincing straws about which genre of writers need a platform and which don’t, and what kind of platform and when, because every professional writer needs a platform eventually. And the sooner every aspiring writer can accept and embrace this, the better.

So there is no reason for a long discusion on, if I’m a fiction writer, does platform apply to me? (Ditto memoirists, poets, etc.)

Platform applies to every single kind of professional writer who wishes to be read. If you don’t want to be read, don’t worry about it. Write as a hobby. There are many other reasons to write besides for publication.

However, if you plan to publish your work or have it published in the hopes that it will also be read, then you always need a platform. And, since you always need a platform, you may as well start laying the groundwork as soon as possible.

Again, it does not matter what genre you write in, if you want to get read some day, you will need a platform. But what platform or which platform should you focus on right now?

Unless you already have a devoted fan base, nobody is interested in what you are going to write. We want to know what you have written. And we want your work served up to us like either a home-cooked meal (if we are the home-cooked meal kind of audience) or like a three-ring media circus (if we run with the best-seller crowd) or however your specific readers would like it to be presented.

In other words, declaring yourself a nonfiction writer or fiction writer or a poet or a memoirist is not going to make or break your career. Just put what you have already written and published in the center of your current platform and then go write your next thing.

Writing careers are LONG. They last a lifetime. Most writers will write across genres both immediately and ultimately. Pretending that a fiction writer will never write nonfiction or that a nonfiction writer is too focused on the truth to ever write anything fictitious is counter-productive.

That’s not the issue from the writer’s point of view. From our perspective, it comes down to write AND grow a platform. You will juggle both. And you will either learn to love it or you will learn to tolerate the tension between the two because it’s necessary.

Regardless of how we feel about this continual tension, writing and platform development are two of the things you must do if you want to be a professional writer. There’s more to do, of course. And if you want the broader picture I hope you will consider purchasing my forthcoming book, The Writer’s Workout, which launches on December 6th.

~ Grand Canyon by ♀Μøỳαл_Bгεлл♂_BACK_FROM_PRAGUE

My third post on resolving the genre/platform/timing divide on Monday, October 31st. In the meantime, you are welcome to read an excerpt from The Writer’s Workout on Scribd, another on WritersDigest.com, or download the free motivational poster inspired by the book.

Thanks again to Porter Anderson for asking the questions and to Jane Friedman for hosting Porter’s weekly Writing on the Ether column.

On October 23rd I wrote a post in which I said:

Pressure to “cre­ate your brand” before you begin writ­ing and pub­lish­ing your work is going to get in the way. It’s going to make your writ­ing self-conscious. It’s going to make you think that you are “some­body” when nobody has read any of your stuff…because as crazy as this may sound most “writ­ers” get dis­cov­ered via their writing.

In his stimulating and multifaceted weekly round up over at JaneFriedman.com called Writing On the Ether, Porter Anderson had some questions about my post:

I like Katz’s post. I’d like it even bet­ter if it had touched on how non­fic­tion and fic­tion peo­ple need to han­dle her good advice about craft. Obviously, every­body needs to write well, and get­ting that down is Job One, Mr. Perot. But there’s also a com­pet­ing under­stand­ing out there that it takes years, not months, to raise a viable plat­form. And I sus­pect that more than one fic­tion writer has got­ten into the car­pen­try class for non­fic­tion and reached for the ham­mer and nails prematurely.

I’m happy to respond. I’ll break the questions down and answer each part over the next three weekdays. Here’s question one:

How should nonfiction writers and fiction writers handle the advice to focus on writing first, rather than on branding?

Not every writer is ready for prime time yet.

In my forthcoming book, The Writer’s Workout, I crack the nut of what really matters in platform development for aspiring writers. (When I say “aspiring writers,” I mean any type of writer who is working to get published.) Yours unique literary dynamic does not emerge from what genre you aspire to publish, it emerges from writing in a way that engenders trust, interest, appreciation, and interaction with readers.

The reader rules. And at the end of the day, if you are a writer, the reader is the most important person in your career. Your readers make you or break you. If they are excited about your work, you win. If they shrug and tune in reality TV instead, you are in trouble, writer.

If you want to figure out what your unique dynamic is, you are not likely to figure it out in any of the online discussions providing lists of what your generic platform is supposed to look like someday (site, blog, a list of social media sites, etc.).

Stop fantasizing about what your future platform will look like, writer, and tap into what is inside of you that the world has never seen before instead (with a nod to Porter and his Writing On The Ether column).

Look to your best examples of who will inspire you to become your best literary self.

Susan Orlean’s dynamic is self-evident to any of her recent or long-time fans. What is it? Describe it. If you are a fan, you can.

Is your dynamic as self-evident as Susan Orlean’s? Or Stephen King’s? Or J.K. Rowling’s?

Probably not yet. But that doesn’t mean it won’t be some day.

Writer, you either love the idea of discovering your unique dynamic through self-reflection and WRITING and publishing and gathering feedback and years and years of professional career growth…or you don’t.

You either want to do your own work, or you don’t.

After ten years of working with writers, I can tell you that the world of writers can be divided up into writers who want to do their work and writers who encounter the actual work behind the 50-city (or even 5 city) book tour and say, “No one told me there I was going to have to do this.”

This post to be continued. On Friday and Monday, I will answer the next two parts of Porter’s question.

Thanks for asking, Porter!

Follow Porter Anderson on Twitter at @Porter_Anderson

Read Writing on the Ether weekly at JaneFriedman.com.

If you are interested in doing your platform preparation regardless of what genre you write in, check out my class, Discover Your Specialty & Launch Your Platform (next class start in January 2012), for folks who want to work with me.

And starting January 1, 2012, for folks who like to work independently, I’ll be offering my eight-week self-study class, Build Your Author Platform. Stay tuned for details.

Susan Orlean is in Portland, Oregon tonight at the Hollywood Theater as part of her book tour for Rin Tin Tin. I can’t make it but I hope my fellow PDXers can attend!

~ Grand Canyon by ♀Μøỳαл_Bгεлл♂_BACK_FROM_PRAGUE