“Get Known Before the Book Deal”—That’s What I’m Trying to Do!

I got a great book for Christmas: Christina Katz’s Get Known Before the Book Deal: Use Your Personal Strengths to Build an Author Platform. You gotta add it to your personal gift-getting-occasions list. If you are a serious author, that is, in search of how to become a published author.

If you already know this stuff (or are Stephen King), apparently you have no need to buy the book. But, I know from conversations with my various critique group members that there are lots of us who are unsure how to navigate the book-marketing waters.

This Brave New World we face is relatively new. Sure, authors have always had to promote their books, thus the 12-cities-in-four-days book tours of the past. But this is different. We must have a clear idea of how to promote our work to selected audiences that we have already developed a connection with/to. These are “fans” who will be delighted to hear that we have something they can buy from us.

So, if like me, you are trying to figure it out, get this book! Christina Katz writes clearly and specifically about what we need to do. She manages to break the whole scary thing down to manageable bites and she does it without talking down to the debut author.

She explains what a platform is and in subsequent sections helps you see yourself doing what she describes. Part One is “Platform Ready” which includes (but is not limited to) chapters on becoming visible, cultivating your expertise, aligning with the audience, thinking productively, and acting from passion. There are more chapters in Part One.

In Part Two, “Platform Set”, she includes chapters on teaching to learn, connecting with others, and offering a service. Again, there are more sections than I have listed.

In Part Three, “Platform Grow”, Katz discusses, among other topics, identity quest, getting testimonials, and broadcasting your blog.

Practical, authentic, realistic. This book holds your hand and leads you through the parts of self-promtion that seem so scary and unfamiliar.

I have bookmarked her website: www.christinakatz.com because she has numerous helpful blog posts, a free monthly newsletter, and workshop offerings. It is a great site to add to your regular rotation of blog sites.

You CAN get known before the book deal. I believe that after reading her book. And you will, too. Welcome, Fellow Debut Author! And a round of applaluse for our guide there, Christina Katz.

Am I still having fun???

A writer is a writer not because she writes well and easily, because she has amazing talent, because everything she does is golden. In my view, a writer is a writer because even when there is no hope, even when nothing you do shows any sign of promise, you keep writing anyway.

Junot Diaz, O Magazine, November 2009

My husband asked me, after I received my third rejection in two weeks, if I was still having fun. It was a curious question for me to consider. Was I still having fun?

“Why did you ask me that?” I responded.

“I just don’t want you to get all stressed about writing and discouraged.” What a sweetheart!

Well, yeah, not only did I have the rejection letters (e-mails, actually), but I had just dumped 200 pages of my novel to start all over again. I could see why he might be worried about me. But I have beau coups persistence and resilience. This is the life path I chose (Or did it choose me?), and I am just fine.

Sure, I wish I had snagged an agent or book contract from that last conference I attended. But I have another conference coming up, and I have some specific feedback via my rejections that should help me shape better stories.

And starting that novel all over again . . . well, what a great chance to reconceptualize my book and to get to know another character better.

Am I a “glass half-full” kinda gal? Not really. I’m more of a let me fill up another glass and then I have this one half-full and another one full up! I’ll be able to use some of those 200 pages in this new book. So this book, Pastabilities, should be quicker to pen than the dumped one, right?

I can’t not write. It is part of my identity. It took me years to claim fiction author as an identity because people think that must mean you are published. But I claim fiction author as firmly as I claim non-fiction author (my published works). I tell people I am an unpublished-as-yet author of fiction and a playwright.

I know all about the odds of breaking into print with a novel. Debut authors are harder and harder to come by as the publishing houses tighten belts and go with established authors. But, it is not impossible. And I will defy the odds. And you will be buying my books and wondering what took me so long to make it to your bookstore.