Own Your Writing Platform

Publishing a book is like running for political office.

There are a lot of people out there who you want to take a certain action, at a certain time and place in the future. With political campaigning, that action is to vote. With book campaigning, it is to buy your book.

In both cases, you need to do many of the same things: meeting people, connecting with existing communities, attending conferences and events, publishing content online, and generally making yourself known in the network that you’ll eventually need to propel you to success.

Here’s what most aspiring writers don’t realize: most of this campaigning needs to happen before you begin writing your book, before you have a proposal, and even before you decide on an idea. Approaching a publisher is actually the last step, not the first, because the first thing they will want to know is how big your “platform” is.