Twenty years ago, all you had to do to be a successful author was write a good book on a topic of interest to consumers. The publisher would get it into the bookstores, people would buy it, and all you had to do was run to the bank to deposit your royalty checks. (You had to run to the bank, because in those days they didn’t have direct deposit.)
Now, even before you write the book, the publisher wants to know what you can do to help market it. The two most important sections of any book proposal have nothing to do with the book title, description, author bio, or table of contents. The two most important sections are “Market Analysis” and “Author Platform.” Publishers want to know who’s going to buy the book and how you are going to sell it.
Just prior to the publication of Take the Mic and Stage a Poetry Slam, my coauthor (Marc Kelly Smith) and I received an author questionnaire from the publisher, Sourcebooks. It was 11 pages long, six of which consisted of marketing questions. I think we each spent two days filling out our forms and another day editing out the profanities inspired by the dullness of it all.
The marketing folks at Sourcebooks wanted to know whether we had blogs or websites we could use to market the book, whether we knew of any other Slam poetry blogs or sites that would help us spread the word, our media contacts, the organizations we belonged to, schools we graduated from, any seminars we might be involved in, special events, and so on. They seemed more interested not in what we knew but who we knew… or, more precisely, who knew us.
I’m not knocking Sourcebooks. It’s that way in all publishing houses and it’s the way you sell more books. In addition, Sourcebooks invests significant resources in helping authors market their books. I’m just sharing some insight into what first-time authors or people who want to get published should expect. Being a successful author is no longer just a matter of knowing something of value and being able to write about it. Having a solid author platform in place is equally, if not more, important:
- High profile in your field
- Plenty of contacts in your field who can help spread the word
- Popular website or blog
- Media contacts
- Well-stocked email address book
- Regular seminar presentations with lots of attendees
- Popular video clips on YouTube
- Active presence in field-related social or professional networks, online and off
- Regular articles in publications, print or electronic, where the target audience seeks information
Having your own publicist, a marketing kit, and a history of appearing in the media, especially on high-profile TV broadcasts, helps, too. In other words, having celebrity status in your field of expertise can pretty much guarantee that your book will be published and you’ll get a decent advance.
If you want to be a successful author tomorrow, start building your platform today.
