So you’ve spent the last year or so writing your first novel.  It may be a great story but it want even make it to first base if it’s poorly written.  Great stories with a significant number of structural and grammatical errors get tossed to the side everyday.  How’s your dialogue? Does it move your story forward or just sit like a rock slowing things down and encouraging the reader to skip it completely. What about your platform? Do you have one? Great manuscripts of first time authors get pushed to the side everyday because the aspiring author doesn’t have a solid platform.

I was recently rejected by a literary agent because of my lack of a solid platform. I spent the last few years editing and rewriting major portions of my manuscript to address issues mentioned above.  I was confident with my work and looked forward to a request for the complete story. Well, what I got wasn’t a request but a rejection.  The reason had nothing to do with my novel. I had focused so much on preparing it for publication that I failed to do one of the most important things, build an audience of potential customers. Is it necessary? Unfortunately yes, especially for first time authors. The agent who rejected me actually apologized for not giving me better news but said it was really hard to place new authors and especially those who did not have a solid platform. While she recommended that I send it to other agents, she also emphasized the importance of building a platform.

The good news is with technology it is a lot easier than you would think.  Google ‘Building a platform’ and you’ll find all kinds of information.  I would personally recommend looking into Michael Hyatt. He is an author, blogger, speaker, and a former chairman and CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers so he knows a little bit about what we are trying to accomplish here. I would also recommend his book ‘PLATFORM GET NOTICED IN A NOISY WORLD’. He provides all the information you need to get started, including websites that assist with the creation of your online presence.

I hope this helps someone out there on their quest to being published.  I chose to discuss platforms in my first entry because of the frustration I felt after receiving the news from the literary agent. I just didn’t know. This is something I could have been doing while preparing my novel for publishing.

Please join me on this journey as I navigate through the publication process.  I will be updating this blog at least twice a week and working out the kinks.  Bear with me and  I promise to provide information that will assist you in your journey and hopefully keep you from making the same mistakes that I have.

-Jan R