What kind of platform do I need?

Hmm. You ask an excellent question. How does one market themselves? Well, there are two things I could see being effective for you:

1) Hosting local classes on your topic. People love to learn about new ideas, so they would love to learn about you and your content.

2) Podcast. If you can't write, you can create a podcast series of teachings online that will get people to have the 101 of your idea.

These two things don't require high amounts of writing, especially if talking is more natural than writing for you.

Anyway, that's just my 2 cents.

I am faced with the same questions as I am writing a self-help book too, but for a different sort of audience.

Blogging and podcasting seems to be the best solution and all successful people in this field started as bloggers (sometimes even as videobloggers). Perhaps you know about that topic better than me, so I should not be stating obvious things.

A strategy that I want to try is different. My book involves exercises, so I'll make the majority of the book available online for free to provoke interest. But the free material will end at the most interesting part. It kind of resembles blogging, you post material for free, but in a different form where everything is aggregated and new visitors would not need to look for information across multiple posts. However, it removes the most valuable aspect - discussions and that's where I am still thinking.

Anyway, my opinion is that you can focus on your proposal because you don't have an audience yet. After all, what you write can help you to build material that you will be using for blogging and public speaking.

theorange said:

Do I need to start marketing now, or can I wait until my proposal is accepted?

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Do you mean marketing the book, or marketing yourself?

The former: No. The public's memory is short. The timescale of publishing is geologic. There's no point getting potential readers excited today about a book that won't hit the shelves for three or four years.

The latter: Sure. The better known you are the field, the more platform you have.

Take a look at recent releases in your field/related fields, particularly books released by publishers you'd like your book to be published by. What platform did those authors have? That's probably the platform you'll need, too.

Theres a great book called Get Known Before the Book Deal that has some really wonderful self promotional techniques for all genres. It is by Kristina Katz.

I dealt with this exact problem when I wrote my book Dreamer: 20 years of psychic dreams. I have more interests besides parapsychology and spirituality, which is the content of this book, but I was sitting on a treasure trove of data and wanted it published, so I wrote the book. I was asked frequently about platform, and was never sure what it meant. It took a while, but I think I understand it now. There a number of ways it can be described, but it comes down to this, "how many people can you count on to be interested in your book?"

For example, I published two textbooks through Springer/UK, which is one of the better scientific textbook publishers. One of the things they liked about my "platform" was that I was writing these textbooks for classes I taught, and would be required reading for my undergraduate students. This meant they had X sales built-in every year. A friend of mine lectures frequently on spiritual subjects, making him very well-known in the community of people interested in such things. It doesn't hurt that his subject, lucid dreaming, is easy to say and remember. His "platform" is a combination of the people he contacts through these lectures, and word-of-mouth beyond that, something that is facilitated by the ease of describing his subject.

In my case, I am more well-known in computer graphics because of my work in film and video games, but am developing my own platform in parapsychology by attending conferences and writing peer-reviewed papers (1 accepted, 1 other with major revisions requested). This is not a fast process, so if you don't have a platform today, do not expect to have one tomorrow.

For a month in 1999, I had an outstanding platform because the TV producer Chris Carter had turned a comic I co-created into the TV series Harsh Realm. In the weeks leading up to the airing of the premiere episode, I received about 75,000 unique visitors a day to my website, harshrealm.com. That "platform," however, belonged more to Chris Carter and Fox than it did to me. I had the visitors, but they were not looking for me. This is a crucial difference.

Another person I know has a successful niche publishing company. He specializes in books about T'orah scholarship, and manages to sell about 10,000 each on the low end, and a good deal more on the high end. In his case, he has an extremely well-developed platform because his career is built around a series of T'orah teachings that eventually lead his audiences to be curious about his books. Again, this did not happen over night. He has been lecturing around the world for twenty years to develop the following he has, and the sales he gets are directly linked to the size of that platform because there is hardly any spread outside of the narrow scope of the community he is a part of.

I smell spaghetti downstairs, so I'm going to eat. My two cents though: if you don't have a platform, get one, and write your book while you do it.

AP

Consider social media sites. If you're connected on Facebook or Twitter, you'll gain a following by simply linking them to articles connected to your topic.

Also, you can follow experts in the field you admire on Twitter and re-tweet the comments you agree with. It'll help build a followers organically who are interested in your topic.

If you do hold classes or a podcast as liter8media suggests, these social networking sites will act as a mini-boost for your platform. Market yourself and bring value to future fans, but make sure you're doing it consistently.

I started by teaching classes at the Learning Annex and then starting a blog and teaching classes on my own and advertising through my blog. I had no intention to publish a book, I was just sharing information and trying to help people, but it took on a life of its own.

Twitter and Facebook also help, though I didn't have it at the time.

I started my blog in 11/06 and about mid-year 2007 people started asking for "the book." I wrote a book proposal (after taking 2 classes on how to do one) and started shopping it in September, signed with my agent in 10/2007, publisher in 5/2008 and the book was published in 5/2009.

I think a platform is what they are all looking for--because you will sell books. You'll also buy them yourself to sell at your events, whether you're a speaker, or a door to door salesman. this is what they're most interested in: garanteed sales. this is what I believe got me a publisher and intertest from an agent...if you can book yourself in various speaking engagemet situations, if you can get a large amount of people on your blog, if you can somehow put yourself out there, and can prove you have the 'numbers", you will go to the head of the line. If you also have a good book, that will clinch it. Just my 2 cents...

Have you thought of doing a series of shortish motivational pieces? Market them one at a time on Amazon. Sell them for $1. Whether you sell much, or not, it will make your "portfolio" appear to be large - as long as you keep the quality up. Provide links to them on your web site.

In the mean time, work on your longer book, do a "blog tour," or guest posts on motivational/spiritual sites.

What kind of platform do I need?

Redwood works well and last...

You need to establish that you are the kind of person equipped to give profound spiritual advice. In my opinion this has more to do with life-style, character and standing in the community than anything else. A picture showing you instructing eager followers, evidence of your own happy life, not just posting stuff online.

You need to start building the platform now, since that takes time. One suggestion: instead of trying to get into print magazines, try the mag's online version--most have one. It's easier to get articles accepted online, and in any case you can participate in the comments. Check out the connections of the other posters, too, and see if you can connect to them.

Find self-help gurus like Tim Ferriss and send them an excerpt from your book (maybe they might mention you on their blog. Also, try sending excerpts from your book to spiritual publications and see if they will publish it. Also joining sites like HARO (Help A Reporter Out) and promote yourself as a spiritual/self-help guru so people will ask for your opinions for news story (when they mention your name in an article, they invariably mention that you are the author of blah blah blah).