I am author, and now I become blogger too
OK, I guess I'm going to be a blogger. I'm trying to get my book published, and after 8 months and 200 query letters (and some abrasive feedback and depressing advice from other authors) I'm feeling the need for a venting outlet of sort.
The book is a memoir, and, more specifically, it is a sexual-identity / sexual-orientation coming-out story. This sentence right here is where I'd tell you what it is that I come out as, if there were a nice simple term for it. For example, one of the speakers who spoke at a conference on gender issues introduced her vantage point as being that of "a typical urban married lesbian working in academia".
See how convenient it is to have a recognizable term?
I myself am not a married lesbian, nor am I a gay man, a heterosexual man, a heterosexual woman, a bisexual man or woman, a transgender male-to-female or female-to-male person, or an asexual person. And there's virtually no cultural awareness about my situation, which goes hand in hand with the absence of a term for it. It's something else. I'm currently using the term GENDERQUEER, although it isn't very self-explanatory, is it?
Well, that's why I wrote the book. More on the book itself shortly.
Anyhow...I have been advised that I need to be concerned with having a "platform"... by which they mean
What contacts do you have in your target markets? Have you already created a website or blog to promote yourself as an author, or to promote your book? Are you scheduled for any speaking engagements at bookstores, colleges, libraries, appropriate conferences? What else are you willing to do to sell your book (go on tour, talk shows, radio shows, book signings)?
and...
The Marketing Plan. Yessir, you’re going to sell your own book, and sell it well. The agent wants to see that not only have you built and developed your platform, but that you’ve considered how best to get your book into the hands of readers.
This "platform" thing apparently stems from the fact that my book is a work of nonfiction. Most non-memoir nonfiction is going to be a factual tome of some sort, and therefore it is logical that one would want the author to be an expert in that field, whether it be history, gardening, law enforcement, the presidential election of 2012, or auto mechanics. Personally I don't see how this applies in the same fashion to memoirs.
Maybe I should be hawking the damn thing as a novel and stick one of those "All characters appearing in this work are fictitious / any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental" disclaimers.
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Index of all Blog Posts
The book is a memoir, and, more specifically, it is a sexual-identity / sexual-orientation coming-out story. This sentence right here is where I'd tell you what it is that I come out as, if there were a nice simple term for it. For example, one of the speakers who spoke at a conference on gender issues introduced her vantage point as being that of "a typical urban married lesbian working in academia".
See how convenient it is to have a recognizable term?
I myself am not a married lesbian, nor am I a gay man, a heterosexual man, a heterosexual woman, a bisexual man or woman, a transgender male-to-female or female-to-male person, or an asexual person. And there's virtually no cultural awareness about my situation, which goes hand in hand with the absence of a term for it. It's something else. I'm currently using the term GENDERQUEER, although it isn't very self-explanatory, is it?
Well, that's why I wrote the book. More on the book itself shortly.
Anyhow...I have been advised that I need to be concerned with having a "platform"... by which they mean
What contacts do you have in your target markets? Have you already created a website or blog to promote yourself as an author, or to promote your book? Are you scheduled for any speaking engagements at bookstores, colleges, libraries, appropriate conferences? What else are you willing to do to sell your book (go on tour, talk shows, radio shows, book signings)?
and...
The Marketing Plan. Yessir, you’re going to sell your own book, and sell it well. The agent wants to see that not only have you built and developed your platform, but that you’ve considered how best to get your book into the hands of readers.
This "platform" thing apparently stems from the fact that my book is a work of nonfiction. Most non-memoir nonfiction is going to be a factual tome of some sort, and therefore it is logical that one would want the author to be an expert in that field, whether it be history, gardening, law enforcement, the presidential election of 2012, or auto mechanics. Personally I don't see how this applies in the same fashion to memoirs.
Maybe I should be hawking the damn thing as a novel and stick one of those "All characters appearing in this work are fictitious / any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental" disclaimers.
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Index of all Blog Posts