Posting this question because I'm trying to help a friend...
My friend wrote a non-fiction book. She landed an agent last year who started shopping her book around. She got a nice rejection from Simon & Schuster. The publisher at Thomas Nelson loved her book (it's a Christian book targeting moms & moms groups), but it got killed by the sales team, who wasn't convinced they could sell it.
After a few more rejections, her agent has told her he's going to stop shopping her book until she builds her platform up. From my very limited perspective here, I believe that she has a good agent who knows what he's talking about. So, the thing I'm wondering, if you were her, what would be the best strategy at this point? I know generally what the concept of a platform is, but I don't know today what the best way is to go about doing that.
For instance... is blogging very helpful? Is there a certain number of followers that would be impressive?
Or would getting a series of related articles published in a relevant magazine help?
Does she need some kind of credentials... like some sort of certification in something to put some letters behind her name that would add authority?
If there's another thread that covers this topic, feel free to direct me there. I did a few searches but didn't find what I was looking for.
My friend wrote a non-fiction book. She landed an agent last year who started shopping her book around. She got a nice rejection from Simon & Schuster. The publisher at Thomas Nelson loved her book (it's a Christian book targeting moms & moms groups), but it got killed by the sales team, who wasn't convinced they could sell it.
After a few more rejections, her agent has told her he's going to stop shopping her book until she builds her platform up. From my very limited perspective here, I believe that she has a good agent who knows what he's talking about. So, the thing I'm wondering, if you were her, what would be the best strategy at this point? I know generally what the concept of a platform is, but I don't know today what the best way is to go about doing that.
For instance... is blogging very helpful? Is there a certain number of followers that would be impressive?
Or would getting a series of related articles published in a relevant magazine help?
Does she need some kind of credentials... like some sort of certification in something to put some letters behind her name that would add authority?
If there's another thread that covers this topic, feel free to direct me there. I did a few searches but didn't find what I was looking for.
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