The #1 Reason We Turn Books Down . . . And How It Can Help You Get Published

Several weeks back I attended the International Christian Retail Show, which is the main annual event for Christian booksellers and related vendors. I’ve attended this show the past several years because it’s a good place to meet with industry friends, authors, and literary agents.

One afternoon my editorial colleagues and I sat around a table with a group of literary agents, discussing some projects we editors had decided to pass on. As we talked I found myself making a rather definitive statement: “The number 1 reason we turn books down is lack of platform.”

If you’ve come within a hundred feet of trying to get published by a traditional publisher, you’ve likely encountered this publishing peeve more times than you care to think about. Platform. What is it? How do you build one? And are there ways to avoid the need for one?

Michael Hyatt, who recently wrote a book titled Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World, a book I highly recommend, defines it this way: a platform is “something that enables you to get seen and heard.” Another way to think about it is this: a platform is any means of bringing exposure to your book.

At this point some will get bent out of shape. “Wait one minute,” a person might say, “Isn’t getting exposure for a book what publishers do?” And of course it is. Among a number of services we provide, such as editing and design, our marketing, publicity/social media, and sales staff work hard to reach as wide a readership as possible for each and every book we publish.

The reality, however, is that the effectiveness of our efforts multiplies exponentially when we combine our resources with those of a well platformed author. Publishing is nothing, and never has been, if not a partnership.

Is there any way to sidestep the need for a platform? To be honest, usually, no, there’s no way to get around it if you want to work with a traditional publisher. But I do know of three ways whereby a platform is, relatively speaking, less necessary.

  1. Write a compelling novel. I personally do not work in fiction, so I can’t speak much to this, but I’m aware that saleable novels often do not require a platform, though they certainly would be helped by one.
  2. Write an engaging story or memoir with truly outstanding prose. Honestly, unless you’ve been writing diligently for over ten years, it’s doubtful you can pull this off. But every now and again, an exceptionally well written memoir by an unknown author can get a publisher’s attention and do really well in the marketplace. Girl Meets God and Blue Like Jazz come to mind.
  3. Come up with a great concept usually represented in the proposed title and pair it with great writing. The example I point to most often here, because I acquired it, is a book by Vince Antonucci called I Became a Christian and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt. Vince did not have much of a platform, but we liked this title and we liked his writing, so we said yes to this one. Other examples from Baker Publishing Group include:

I hasten to add that many of the authors above do have platforms. But these concepts have turned out to be so saleable, a platform in these cases seems (again, relatively speaking) less important.

Lest you get too excited too quickly, let me issue a caution. These concepts are hard to come by, and even if you did land one, it’s doubtful you’d be able to come up with another. In other words, it is difficult to sustain a writing career with this sort of book, and even with a highly saleable concept, having a platform will only help you in the long run.

So, how do you build a platform? The old way of doing it, I suppose, was to build a following gradually any way one could—speaking engagements, articles, mailed newsletters, products, books, and so on. And some of this is still very much worth doing. We can tell when our authors are on the road speaking because we see a corresponding bump in sales of their books.

The current way to build a platform, though, is all about using the internet and social media. I don’t have the space to go into detail about this, but if you read Hyatt’s book and Tribes by Seth Godin, you’ll easily have the equivalent of bachelor’s degree in building a platform. The reality is it has never been cheaper or simpler or faster to build a platform than it is today. But it does take determination and a lot of hard work.

What are you doing to build your platform?

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Categories: Platform, Publishing, Writing

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19 thoughts on “The #1 Reason We Turn Books Down . . . And How It Can Help You Get Published”

  1. Thanks Chad,
    Platform is a discussion I’m always having with our authors. A good idea, great writing, a market waiting for what you’ve got and a very well put together product, insanely these days, isn’t enough. Amazon, last time I checked, has close to 30 million listings in softcover and hardcover books. There’s no way a good book is going to rise above that noise without help.
    Authors have got to build their own audience and then treat them well enough to evangelize. Publishers add their own audience, marketing ability, distribution and infrastructure to facilitate adding to that audience. You’re absolutely right – authors and publishers as partners has never been more relevant.

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  3. I was a social media rebel if there ever was one. When I finally gave in and joined facebook this year, my close friends almost fainted. But, I am now a testifying witness to what social media can do or rather what God can do when we do our part. Viewership of my blog grew by leaps and bounds once I began posting on facebook. I’m only two months in with LinkedIn and have already made great connections to promote a Christian writer’s conference, Write2Ignite!
    I’m fairly new at twitter and still learning my way with that one. Right now, my greatest benefit with that is following Christian writers and publishers and gleaning nuggets of wisdom.
    My greatest struggle is learning to balance the social media with actually writing!

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  5. Good article, Chad. I’ve begun to make an effort myself to branch out, gain exposure, and write for an audience via my blog and other articles over the past six months or so, and I can definitely agree with what you are saying here. It takes diligent effort to build a platform.

    • Joshua, I feel your pain. I’m less than two months into this, and it can be a slog, man! But I also love it, not least because of comments like yours. Thanks for writing in.

  8. Platform?
    Huh?
    Wouldn’t it be easier if I just walked a tightrope across Iguazu Falls? In heels? In a typhoon?

    Okay, here’s where I am in terms of platform.

    I…
    – write a bi-weekly column for a newspaper
    – had a blog/journal for 11 years (is now private)
    -Twitter, Facebook and normal telephone active
    -have Blogspot blog
    -reader of several industry blogs
    -articles published in missionary newsletter

    How’s that, Obi Wan?

  9. Great piece, thanks. One of the biggest barriers I come across with aspiring authors with respect to platform is the assumption that using social media is a “teenage waste of time”. People need to recognize not only the power of the medium, but that developing, nurturing and sustaining such platforms is hard, daily work.

    • Jamie, absolutely! I did not start this blog until I had figured out a rhythm for writing and posting that was sustainable. I’m only a couple weeks in, so we’ll see, but the point is, platform building takes time and tenacity. Thanks for being here, by the way.

  10. What an insightful article, Chad. Thank you for putting together such details for would-be authors. I have a free Ebook, Platform Building Ideas for Every Author that many have received some solid help in this area. It’s at: http://terrylinks.com/pb Keep up the good work.

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