The public eye.
Publishers want to see how many potential buyers are out there just waiting to read your book. This is the foremost concern on a publisher’s mind when considering contracting with an author. Who would’ve thought marketability surpassed novel content?
When I set out to write my first manuscript, I was sure that finding an agent and/or publisher had everything to do with my prose, ingenuity, and overall ability to tell a story. Now, don’t get me wrong…those things are very important. But, not as important as salability. After all, they are fronting the costs of everything from editors, book designers, printing, etc. Publishers are not philanthropists. They need to feel confident that whatever financial risk they are taking will pay back with dividends.
This makes sense.
We do the same things as consumers and investors, making sure we get some return on our investment. After all, we work hard for our money. And authors work hard to produce quality work. That’s why I found it a tad bit stressful when, after putting all the blood, sweat, tears, and gray hairs into my work, I learned I now had to put in further effort to create my own market share for the end product.
Again, in hindsight, it makes sense. An inventor often has to go out and find a consumer base for their latest gadget. Even Apple has to have yearly conferences to showcase its goods, to create demand. I think as a reader, when you see so many prolific authors on the NYT best sellers list, or on the shelves at your favorite store, you assume that if you write it, the readers will just come.
In those cases, at least the business or author has a product to highlight. For us beginners who are trying to just get their book published, it is hard to find an audience willing to sign on without seeing what you’ve written.
This is where Author Platforms come in.
Thanks to the Internet and Social Media, new authors have the chance to reach out to their vast networks of friends, family, and even strangers by creating websites, blogs like this one, and other social content (Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, to name a few). If we can convince you to jump on our Crazy Train and wait for super cool content, you’ll help us be rewarded with a publishing contract. *Fingers Crossed* And in return, our platforms, websites included, will reward your loyalty and interest with special giveaways, sneak peeks, and exclusives. So, in the words of Tom Hanks’ character in The Polar Express, “You comin’?”
© K.T. George 2017 | This post was first seen on ktgeorge.com