If you need to learn platform basics, I hope you will start with my second book Get Known Before the Book Deal.
Remember that old Dr. Pepper jingle?
I would change it today to:
I’m a publisher, you’re a publisher, he’s a publisher–wouldn’t you like to be a publisher too?
Publishing is on a spectrum today. It’s on a spectrum from long to short. Cheap to expensive. And in a range of forms from two-dimensional (words on a screen) to multi-dimensional (you name it). There is a lot of room for success within these perameters for folks who understand that there is a name for that space where publishing success happens.
And that space is called your author platform. And it’s not about one book you publish or even the next book you are going to publish. It’s about all that you are and all that you have to offer. Because there is only one person who owns that–you.
Sadly, most writers do not seem to have even a basic understanding of what platform is. I have been told this repeatedly by industry insiders and conference organizers at conferences I have recently attended. Most of the writers attending conferences don’t seem to understand the role of platform in the publishing process.
Apply what you learned from Get Known in my author dynamic workbook, Discover Your Platform Potential.
What this means is that those folks who are pitching book ideas at conferences are hoping for a dream to come true (going from undiscovered to overnight success). Not only is this unlikely to happen; it’s only one version of the success that is possible. And a pretty tired and rare story at that.
In the meantime, lots of others stories of publishing success are popping up. I am sure you are hearing them. I think we have passed the tipping point now. It’s the point where the folks who started to really dig in and work on their platforms a few years ago as home bases of multi-dimensional income streams are starting to smile. It doesn’t matter if they make a little bit of money here and a little bit of money there rather than only one stream of money from one big book. In fact, it’s probably better if they don’t put all of their efforts into just one stream.
Those writers are starting to smile because that money is starting to add up. And because they are the producers of their own careers, they enjoy a grounded sense of ownership, that does not rely on approval from any one external source. Readers get to decide their success. Readers in many guises.
- My third book, The Writer’s Workout, describes the future of publishing with special emphasis on empowering individual writers to build skills that get them ready for the new paradigm in publishing.
And I’ll tell you what they are not doing: they are not hanging out online all day commenting on blog posts. They are working. They are building. They are earning. And they represent publishing today just as much as any publisher.
So you tell me, which story would you rather read about? The one in a million author who makes it big? Or the ordinary writer, who decided to dig deep and work hard and do it consistently until it started to pay off?
I hope you are paying more attention to the second kind of story because that’s the future.
Most aspiring writers don’t realize that it’s extremely rare to earn a full-time income, even a modest full-time income, from writing one long, traditionally published book. We need to be able to acknowledge that elephant in the room without pointing the finger at anyone.
Why should it be news to anyone that monumental mass success is rare?
And why don’t we ever talk about the personal sacrifice that is involved in celebrity-making fame?
But this is a topic for another day. Today, the most exciting story I know of is that writers are earning consistently by offering the greatest variety of services they can while still have a happy day-to-day life.
And if you don’t think this is as exciting as I do. Then just stick around. Because things are going to get really exciting soon.