I’ve always thought of a platform as a raised wood surface. I picture the uncovered plywood floor next to the River Stage at the Festival for the Eno, built for cloggers to dance on. Now that’s a platform.
Then there’s platform at the center of the myth, the one about author pages and twitter feeds. The online writing community is full of blogs about how agents look for writers to have a huge web presence, and how we need to have a website even before we have any books to put on it. This has always seemed backward to me. I did start a facebook author page, but even that seems premature. I haven’t published any books. What would I put on a website, and why? (Explain in two paragraphs or less, citing at least one example).
What’s lacking in the discussion of publicity, followers and tracking numbers is craft. Agents are looking for people who really write, and who tell a story they can sell. I’m not knocking self-pub. There are some good indie books out there. But I’ve read novels by people who have become experts at building platforms. They cross-post on multiple sites. They give workshops, speak on panels. They market.
And shortchange the importance of craft. They head-hop. They write mysteries where none of the characters have a stake in solving it. Emotion-laden scenes get interrupted with backstory. In short, they write books that are really easy to put down.
I have a daughter who was born to write. Really. She has been querying her first novel, which was her MFA thesis. At the time she got her first offer of representation, she had five full and partial manuscripts sitting with other agents. She has settled on an agent, and is very excited. She’s busy thinking about how to pull off the changes that will make her novel marketable.
Not platforms. Writing.
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