Platform, Which May Be Something You Stand On or a Quick Fall Into the Depths

Recently, a delightful person asked me if I have author platform. If you haven’t encountered the term, platform refers to public awareness of, and the potential guessable audience for, a writer. Platform matters because it’s common now for publishers to insist on seeing evidence of platform before signing. I give a lot of publishing talks and “What is platform and how do I get it” has become the most common question I hear.

My immediate response to the question of whether I have platform is, not too much, probably. I write for the Huffington Post, Ms., the New York Times, The Hill and other places that many people see. But if you look up articles on building author platform—and their name is Legion, for they are many—what I’ve got in that direction is small beer. Small as in like the cups you get when you order a craft beer flight. The checklist for platform generally includes multiple publications in large media, with a sense of expertise on particular subjects. For the media, I generally write in some way about neurodiversity and my call to rethink psychiatric practice. Lately I wrote on bipolarity and Britney Spears. This is the check on my list.

But the rest of author platform is: very widely followed blog and social media; e-newsletter; regular speaking engagements; maybe running a podcast; doing radio. One article on platform mentioned enthusiastically that it would be great to be Jon Stewart . . . which it totally would, except not for those reasons.

Let’s see, hours in a day, meet author platform. I hope you get along, but you probably won’t.  There’s always rolling out new content to keep those followers following. Constant pitching. It’s true you can hire publicists to do some of this work, but it’s costly and before you can, you’d likely need to have had the book success platform can give you.

So here’s my honest talk: I once had a book of mine featured in a publication that had more than 30,000,000 readers. It was an article pulled partially from the book, addressing its subject, and a little image of my adorable book cover sat at the bottom of the page.

And that book sold terribly. I don’t know why. I got many many emails, letters, and even a couple of phone calls from people who loved that article. They just didn’t buy the book. It flummoxed—and deeply annoyed—my editors, who sent their annoyance my way pretty quickly. Real talk is that platform makes great sales much more likely, but it’s no guarantee. And for a neurodiverse person like me, doing constant mega-events flashing my Jon Stewart vibe is a nonstarter.

So maybe the most useful thing I can suggest is this: pick what really matters to you from the platform checklist—it may be nothing—and commit to it, but mostly because it will nourish you. When I pitch articles, I pitch articles about subjects I want others to consider, or reconsider. Learn how to write a good pitch letter (I’m happy to do a pitch letter post if anyone out there is interested) and think about what you’re passionate about, if this sounds right for you. Do a fun blog, if that’s your thing. Or do everything on the checklist, because you want to. And then find your balance. Breathe.

Live, Submit, Publish, Live More

Rejection hurts. If it doesn’t hurt for you, you’re not only a writer unicorn, but a unicorn horned with melted coins from ancient Rome. Almost all of us, faced with rejection, react on a spectrum somewhere between spooning pints of ice cream over the sink to howling on a deserted beach to deciding you should just learn to do something practical, like cut hair.

We’re talking literary journals today, so let’s get perspective. Common acceptance rates for literary journals—of which I’ve edited three—tend to hover between one and three percent. That means it takes 97 rejections just to be normal. That much rejection likely won’t happen to you. Keep in mind, though, that with this level of sifting, most rejections have nothing to do with you but with that journal’s needs, backlog, and other inscrutables. One year my journal published back-to-back stories about animals. When we realized that, we promised ourselves no animals for two years. Your dog poem may be wonderful, but we can’t accept it.

What you need isn’t one finished piece and one or two submission ideas. You need a submission plan. That means at least five or six finished pieces, more if you have them, and an equal number of venues to send them to. More is better here too. It’s rare these days for journals not to accept multiple submissions, so get the numbers on your side. You will drastically increase your odds, and any one rejection won’t kill your soul. The ice cream can go back into the freezer.

An effective submission plan uses targeting--finding the right venues for you. The fact is that you want to be published and somebody out there wants to publish you. But you have to find each other. This can take time, but time that can be seriously reduced.

One of the smartest means to success is always, always, looking at calls for submission. These are public announcements by publishers and editors that they are looking for a particular kind of work, on specific topics or in specific forms.

Some of the best sources for calls are Poets & Writers online Classifieds, New Pages, and Entropy.

A quick look at Poets & Writers’ call page finds calls for literary works on subjects as diverse as hindsight;  21st century cities and their transformations; and the changing nature of today’s environment. You can see that these are very specific. Checking regularly, finding the right fit, gives you a big advantage. Note the genre they’re looking for. Give yourself time once a week to look at calls for submissions. It will take you maybe half an hour.

A related practice is to define to yourself carefully what your work is doing, both in content and style. Many journals are specialized. For instance, Alimentum focuses on food “as a muse.” Slag Glass City focuses on urban environments. These are very different journals, that may or may not fit your approach. Finding journals with a specific focus is something Mr. Google will be happy to do for you.

Finally, my blog is called “Live, Write, Publish, Live More” because publishing should always be bracketed within your life, whatever your life may look like. Remember: you are taking that brave step of doing the writing. For every writer out there, there are a hundred people regretting that they never pursued this dream.

Use my contact form to send me questions, successes, or horror stories. They’re all part of the landscape.

Literary Awards: How to, Where to, When to

 How do people get literary awards? There are a lot of award myths: the awarders find you; to nominate a book you just send it in; you can’t nominate yourself; your press will know what awards you’re eligible for and go ahead and nominate you. I created this list for myself and thought I’d share it. Note it obviously isn’t every award that’s out there. If you know of any I’ve missed, drop me a line.

 Most awards have a formal submission process and those are the only books judges consider. They also mostly have entry fees. And some surprisingly let you nominate yourself (I know authors who nominate themselves each year so they can say they are a “Pulitzer-nominated” author. I do not judge). Some awards consider self-published books; some do not. Many presses who do not nominate don’t because editors are too busy to track awards or fees are too steep.

 The time to talk awards with a press that takes your book is on acceptance or during production. This is also true if you choose self-directed publishing. Editors might want you to track deadlines for them and issue reminders. If funds are an issue you might want to look into ways you can sponsor those fees. I’ve found small grants to cover these in the past.

 Lambda Literary Awards (Lammys): These awards recognize the best writing in the areas of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer lives. There are many categories, including fiction, memoir, poetry, science fiction, and more. Self-published books are considered. Ebook-only books are not. See website for deadlines and details:

 National Book Award: This and the Pulitzer are the most well-known awards here. Categories are fiction, poetry, nonfiction, translated literature and young people’s literature. The award opens March 17 and closes May 20 (so SOON!). The fee is $135 and presses must nominate. Their self-published book rules are a bit complex. Check the site.

National Book Critics Circle Award: There are six categories, fiction, nonfiction, poetry, criticism, autobiography, and biography. Each category has a committee that judges that genre. Committee members can nominate books, but books sent in by the press will also be considered. It’s free except for multiple copies of the book. The press needs to do a free registration.

 PEN America is an awards and advocacy organization that sponsors many awards in all genres and many different areas. They give out awards for literary translation, science writing, books of individual essays, debut short story, and too many other categories to list. These awards come with much prestige and cash prizes ranging from $1,000 to $75,000. Books must be submitted by publishers. There is a fee, but most fees will be waived if the press’s annual budget is less than $2,000, 000, a point you might want to let your press know.

 Most PEN awards open June 15 annually but check the site. No self-published authors. An important thing to note is that you can submit the same book in more than one category—that debut novel might also fit socially engaged fiction, for example. Research on fit for your book should come from you.  The best way to learn which PEN awards might be right for you is to go to their website.

Pulitzer Prize: The Pulitzer is awarded in many categories, including a large number in journalism. If you’re reading this, you probably fit into one of their categories. Anyone can nominate a book and it can be self-published. You must be a U.S. citizen and the book must have been published and available for purchase in the award year. The fee is $75. Last year’s deadline was June 19.