On Building Platforms

Is it a platform or is it a...project?

Hi friends.

I gave a little talk this week to a bunch of lovely people on the topic of building a platform for yourself as a writer, primarily online, and it was something I hadn’t thought about in any sort of organized fashion for a good long time because I’m just sort of doing the thing I do right now in a very organic and instinctual way. Anyway, I put together a few brief takeaways from it which I’ll share with you in a second.

But first I wanted to mention that after an enthusiastic response to my post about possibly teaching a zoom workshop on how to use your life in you writing whether memoir or autobiographical fiction, I have decided to do it! And it will be on Saturday October 10 which is obviously 2 months from now, but I will remind you. And Kayla said she would moderate again, so we’ll all be in safe hands. So I’ll post a link to register for it next week but just wanted you to have that date in hand.

OK onto thinking about platforms for a minute.

And first, please forgive me for not knowing anything about YA or children’s or genre fiction—I am speaking very specifically to adult literary fiction and memoir here for the most part, but perhaps some of this translates regardless.

A million years ago your platform was: Where did you get your MFA? What prestigious literary magazines have you been published by? What smaller but still prestigious literary magazines have you been published by? Have you written for any magazines or newspapers? Perhaps you are a contributor to “This American Life” or some other radio show? And, more quietly, who are you related to or who do you know?

Now platform is still all of that, but with some new, super fun twists.