Every day, I write. And every day, I learn something new about this business known as publishing.
My largest hurdle to date is known as a platform. My platform is my sphere of influence. My way of reaching readers. Like a performer on a stage; I must be able to prove to a publisher that someone will show up when it is time for me to sing. A lot of someones, preferably.
So, instead of writing a book that will draw people towards my stories, the publishing business now wants it to be the other way around. “Show us your audience, and we will help you publish a book.”
In other words, it’s no longer “If you build it, they will come.” Now the people must come first, and then we can build it.
“Establish yourself as an expert,” they tell me, “and then get back to us.”
So, what exactly am I an expert on?
This is what I’ve come up with so far:
I’m an expert on loving.
I’m an expert on learning things the hard way; on making mistakes but finding God in the midst of them anyway.
I’m an expert on recognizing deep feelings in emotions in others, and being so moved that I have no choice but to write about them.
I’m an expert on raising kids, or at least my kids. I know them, inside and out, and am honored to present them to you as beautiful, compassionate people who make the world around them a better place.
I’m an expert on marriage, or at least my marriage. Happily ever after takes work, but it is so worth fighting for.
I’m now an expert on finances, but only because I have mismanaged them in the past and now find myself unemployed for the first time since I was fifteen years old.
I’m an expert on finding a good perspective. You can thank my parents for that. The death of my father when I was a baby pointed me toward heaven from the start. And my mother demonstrated how to survive and overcome; to show up every day and give it my best shot. Once you figure out the big things in life, the small stuff doesn’t bother you much.
I’m becoming an expert on de-cluttering and organizing the home. Not so much by doing it but by studying the practices of those who do, and choosing the best 65,000 words to explain how to follow suit for my first book project. (Atlantic Publishing – The Parent’s Guide to Uncluttering the Home – to be released early in 2011, I believe.)
I’m an expert on listening for stories that beg to be shared. And these stories only matter because they are true. We need to better understand each other as we walk side by side through this life, and nothing brings us together like the power of our stories.
But without any pre-existing fame, none of this matters much to the publishing industry. Yet.
So , I won’t be chasing fame any time soon. I will just continue to chase down my stories, and trust them to speak for themselves. I will hammer them together until they make a platform.
A platform. Like a performer on a stage, but don’t worry, there will be no singing….
