Platform is essential for non-fiction. Platform means "how do people know who you are NOW" which means it's not "I will build a website" or "I will go on TV" cause those are things you'll do in the future. Platform is about NOW, before the book proposal.
One good way to build platform is to have articles or opinion pieces published in major media. If you don't know how to do that, there's a way to learn. It's called The OpEd Project and they offer seminars on how to pitch yourself and your topic to editors, as well as other things that help you build platform.
I attended the Core Seminar here in NYC yesterday. I think it's well worth the investment to attend. Seminars are held across the country. Their website gives details on the project itself, and the upcoming seminar schedule.
5 comments:
Thanks for this information. I've been trying to build platform and I do have some OpEd pieces in a local paper.
With over a hundred, op-eds and essays in dailies and weeklies, and one year as a columnist under my belt, I still bill myself as a minnow in a mud puddle. (I hope I'm not insulting my editor by saying that.)
I'm building my platform one plank at a time as my fan-base expands. I just hope I don't drown from all this swimming.
Thanks for the info.
Sounds like a great seminar (not for me, bc I'm strictly fiction.) But around the country? Not hardly: NY, Boston, LA, San Francisco, San Diego, and Atlanta. I know they probably want metro areas; that makes sense. But what about Detroit? Boise? Miami for heavens sake. Maybe that would open up the conversation a bit.
My biggest question about platform has to do with the fact that I write more "literary" nonfiction. I write personal essay, and other narrative nonfiction. Thus, I'm curious how else to create platform other than by writing articles or opinion pieces. How do I create platform more personal pieces? Is it just lit mag publications I should be shooting for?
I read the previous post about platform. I am an unpublished writer doing a biography about a guitar player who has played and worked with some very famous people. Would his fan base and the fan base of the band he was in for 16 years be enough of a platform?
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