Non-fiction book writing and your platform

I sent a query about something I didn't have platform for, and agents responded that I should build platform in that area by writing articles and making a website on the topic. And I've been published quite a bit, just not on that particular topic.

I don't know if smaller pubs would have gone for it--I didn't try that route, because frankly I was looking for $$.

Platform is shorthand for several requirements

At an agent's panel recently at our regional writing group, Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group (www.glvwg.org), someone was asking about platform and the agents explained there are at least two different things going on. One is more accurately called "credentials" - do you have years of experience leading your local gardening club? Do you have a degree in gardening? Have you won awards?

The other part of platform is more like "reputation" or "following" - how many people want to know your opinion about gardening? The traditional darlings of platform building are, articles, radio shows, television appearances, public speaking engagements. Say you were being asked to give talks at regional gardening clubs, or were quoted in your newspaper as an expert. That would be good.

I think blogs represent a whole new avenue of platform building, and the one I have chosen. I hope to eventually create a reputation as "the memoir guy." The price of admission is essentially free. And you can start out from wherever you are and build up. If you persistently write a good blog, presumably for more than a couple of years, and get an online following, voila, "instant" platform. You can start to network with other online organizations, and bloggers, and hopefully eventually drive your statistics up to a point of impressing publishers. And all you had to do was work for it.

Jerry

What has been said so far is great advice. With so many books available every year, in order to stand out, there has to be a way to get attention and proving you're qualified to give the advice is logical. If you like your topic enough to spend a few years working with it, both on the book and on a platform - go for it.

If not, have you considered writing and selling something like a tips booklet, ebook, or special report direct from your website? As long there is a decent size group of people looking for the information you have, and you can provide solid info, you should be able to find an audience/buyers.

There are plenty of people who make good money selling information without a print book. Even if you can say, "I had the same problem, here's how I solved it", or "I always wished there was X kind of book about this," you can establish a credibility that many people will find trustworthy enough to make a purchase.

Down the line, if you can build a following for some of these shorter pieces, it can translate into a ready-made audience for a book which would potentially make you interesting to a publisher. Who knows, by then you may not even want to turn things over anyway.

Platform can also be an ever-changing target, even for folks with successful books. For example, I have to consider my own platform for my next books. I've established my qualifications to write about being Aspergian, but what if I want to write about being an Aspergian in business? Well, I've been pretty successful in business, but who knows that? So to do such a book, I'd have to build that aspect of platform.

The only difference with previously successful authors is that we may have more opportunity for platform building. But it still has to be done.

Great ideas. I have thought about blogging...but honestly I am worried someone would steal my ideas and use it in their own book.

What if you are writing a diet and fitness book for mothers and your qualifications/platform is you worked in physical therapy/athletic training for 13 years and you are a mother and you have interviewed several dozen other mothers. That doesn't seem like much of a platform, but it doesn't make me an idiot either.

How do you when it's enough?

When is enough, enough?

We think, we even KNOW, we have good ideas, and we are well qualified. But publishers want to try to guess how many people are going to actually pull it out, flip through it, and walk over to the check out counter and pay for it. So while we're trying to convince publishers, they are trying to convince readers. If they think they can do that, they'll buy it.

So the answer is, although it sounds flip, "You know when it's enough when you can sell it." Maybe that's as simple as finding an agent who believes in you, but chances are, they have sat across from a lot of editors, who all seem to be offering the same message. (There's no simple way to get around the system, other than self-publish and that's not simple either. )

One great source of information is to go to writing conferences and get your 5 or 10 minutes with an agent, attend the agent panels, read Jenna Glatzer's awesome thread on this forum, and in general learn the game, and then start the long road of playing it.

Jerry

A ton of people simply write from personal experience and lots of readers/buyers value this because they feel you've walked in their shoes. Also, many years of applicable work experience is more than many people have when they put out a book, a site etc.

When it's enough depends, like Jerry said, on who you're trying to convince. Exactly where you are now, might be great for a buyer and only the tip of the iceberg to an agent. As was also mentioned earlier, being accepted by an agent or publisher is absolutely a moving target. What you also might want to do is look at which publishing option best fits the platform level you have now or would like to have in the future. It may set up a different strategy for you.

With regard to blogging, successful marketers will say having a blog, or newsletter or both, is an absolute requirement. Participating in other forms of social networking is also pretty much a given too. It's just the way sales/marketing works right now.

No matter which of these you participate in, you never have to "give away the store" as they say. You should be able to make comments that show your expertise, with just enough uniqueness to entice people to learn more or want to buy something with more detail.

Besides, as you probably know, to include all that you could possibly say on a blog or forum post would get way too long, so it shouldn't be too hard to to give a useful snippet without revealing trade secrets.

If you can't do that, you might need more in the product. (I say product because it appears you could offer a variety of formats beyond a book).

Does that make sense?

Keep at it, it sounds like what you have to offer will help a lot of people.

Just another idea to throw into the hat.

You can try and find an expert in the field who has a terrific platform with the idea of co-authoring with him or her. You might also consider ghostwriting for such a person. Either way you would have to decide if you want the help of the other person (advice and/or critique) or if you only want to be able to use their name. Of course the expert would have to get some piece of any monies.

brc23 said:

What if you are writing a diet and fitness book for mothers and your qualifications/platform is you worked in physical therapy/athletic training for 13 years and you are a mother and you have interviewed several dozen other mothers.

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Start by publishing articles in magazines targeted to mothers and expectant mothers, like Fit Pregnancy.

Then you'll have your platform.

Thank you so much for your responses. "Does that make sense?" Yes. It was all crystal clear.

About the blog, as I was reading I was thinking....yeah if I give away the store in a blog then I wouldn't have much to say. I get that.

""You know when it's enough when you can sell it." I just made a little sign for myself by the computer. That statement just spoke volumes to me. The same is true for your manuscript and proposal also. Thanks.

I just know I have read a ton of books on my topic. One was written by a former playboy model it was hilarious and honest. When I was done I thought, I could have written that. So when I write I do think of her book. When you guys were talking about platform I was just confused because here she was a playboy model from the 70's and her first book was about how to survive pregnancy. It's not that her platform was huge, it was that she sold it.

Crystal clear. Thanks.

And, she is a former playboy model, she has name recognizably which goes a long way in convincing editors your book will sell. Think about why you picked her book up to read, was it her name, or the title of the book? You bought the book because after looking at it you thought it might be something you'd enjoy, but I'm guessing she also convinced you she knew what she was talking about.

That's what we need for our platform, we need to be able to show the readers (potential) we know what we're talking about, and our book will not be boring. Then we need to be able to convince the editors of the same thing, plus show them there are readers who will buy our books.

I see what you are saying and agree...but for example the book I mentioned is "Girlfriends Guide to Pregnancy".

I did pick up the book because of the title. Not because the author was an expert. I read the back cover and the reviewers said it was funny and gave real life advice.

So if that's the case basically I can be an idiot with a good title. No?

I only learned after reading it she was a former PB model. That was my point. Ironically she has a journalism background, but her platform and writing were about model turned mommy.

That's why I get confused. It's all in how you sell yourself I guess.

What makes us experts?

petwriter said:

Are most of you writers who have built up expertise on your subject by writing many articles, etc. about it--or are most of you experts on the subject (such as a therapist writing about self-help topics).

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The answer is all over the map. When I look at my book shelf, I find that some experts have degrees, some have life experience, some have become experts by lots of study and lots of writing about what they study. One really interesting trend is that if you can speak from personal experience, you can often bypass some of the credential issues. That's why (in my opinion) memoirs have become so popular. You are an "expert" at being you.

For example, psychological topics often expect some big credentials, like if you want to write a self-help book about smoking cessation, you not only ought to be a doctor, but also ought to have run a clinic for 20 years to help people stop smoking. However, I saw on the bookshelf (but didn't keep the name), a memoir from someone who stopped smoking.

Another example, from one of the AbsoluteWrite writers, Doreen Orion, who wrote "I know you really love me." She's a psychiatrist, but her topic was about being stalked. She became an expert at that because she was stalked, and she wrote her story as a memoir.

Another AbsoluteWriter Jenna Glatzer (editor in chief here), wrote "Fear is No Longer my Reality" with Jamie Blyth. He has sex and celebrity appeal because of his appearance on the Bachelorette, but his expertise in social anxiety results from his personal experience. (And Jenna quotes a bunch of experts for additional credibility.)

One of my writing mentors, Jonathan Maberry became an "expert" on vampire folklore because he was interested in it and started studying it. After he wrote a definitive book on the folklore of the weird, he was known as an expert. He has since won two Bram Stoker awards, so he's a good writer, too.

My goal is to be seen as an expert at how life stories work. There's no credentialing organization that is going to back me up, so I have to earn the right to be considered an expert. You might imagine this is a lofty goal, but that's okay. I have a plan. I'm reading the "Power of One," by Bryce Courtenay, and the protagonist has just learned that little can defeat big, with a plan that starts from the head and moves to the heart.

Jerry

Brandy, I loved that book while pregnant and wished I'd written it, too, lol. I thought you might be interested to know that the author is married to an immensely powerful recording company owner and is bff with people like Brooke Shields and Gwen Stefani.

Don't get me wrong--she's a fantastic, hilarious writer and deserves to have a famous book. But she did have a little boost up to that first step on the ladder, too.

I agree with you that her title is what gets you to take a look, and that her credentials are that she's a girlfriend, not an expert. Maybe that's something that we proles could emulate. For example, if you did a great job getting back in shape, the fact that women appreciate that you're "just like other moms," not a celebrity with a highly paid trainer, could actually be something to point out, along the lines of diet books by ladies who claim that if they could do it, anyone could.

I'm currently trying to sell a childbirth choices book that gives facts about given methods and locations, followed by first person birth stories. My only credentials are that I've written a smattering of magazine articles and had three vastly different birth experiences (epidural, accidental natural, and HypnoBirth). So I'm trying to play up the fact that experts are often necessarily out of touch with the sheer joy and terror first-time pregos feel while planning birth, and that other amateurs who have been there can give the most useful and reassuring advice.

Good luck!

Consider changing your authorial role/voice from that of "expert" to that of "reporter."

For example, I could never sell a book on how I save money on gas. Nobody gives a dang how I save money on gas. But, quite possibly, I could sell a book on how *experts* recommend you save money on gas or even how *Americans* are struggling to save money on gas. I would get that information by playing reporter -- by landing an interview with a dozen Ed Begley Jrs. or by interviewing a hundred motorists at gas stations across the country.

In other words, my knowledge on that subject is worth jack, but the knowledge I could fetch in the role of reporter could indeed be in demand.

Platform is double-edged: It refers to both your expertise and your following/established readership. If you have no expertise/authority, you can play reporter and rely on others' expertise. But, of course, that in no way discounts the importance of following/established readership. So once you've interviewed the tomato-growing champs of 50 of the country's top garden clubs, then you can start blogging about it or writing articles about it or giving talks at your local garden club about it.

Hope that helps!

I have cowritten one nonfiction book and am planning another on a subject my degree is on and my dayjob is in. I suspect that kind of platform helps. But if you don't have it the options seems to be to try and build it, or try and create a book that will speak for itself?

"Partner up," align yourself with someone in the subject area who has the solid, identifiable credentials you lack. Whether the expert's role is that of consultant, adviser, co-author, authenticator, or whatever is appropriate, don't forget to put everything in writing and have permission to use the expert's name and credentials in any way, shape, or form. You may need an intellectual rights attorney for the proper contract. Once done, link your name with that of the expert in your query, proposal, manuscript, and wherever else is appropriate.

Also, do all you can to become as knowledgeable as possible in the subject area.