Raising The Platform Bar

By Rick Frishman - Aug 10 , 2007

Not so long ago, publishers didn’t insist that writers have platforms. If a good writer also had a platform, it was great. The platform was considered a bonus, something extra that the writer could contribute.

“Take a woman who spent her entire life raising kids, owned a very successful day-care center or was a foster mom, who had successfully raised many children, her own and those she took in,” June Clark, a New York agent with the Peter Rubie Literary Agency Ltd., says. “If she wanted to write a parenting book, they would look at her and say, ‘You don’t have a platform.’ It wasn’t like that years ago. Now, you have to be a nurse, a pediatrician, a child psychologist, and have a following. A couple of people have snuck under that wire who were witty writers or journalists with contacts, but it’s very, very difficult,” Clark declares.

In the past, authors could just be authors. However, the success of books by authors with platforms poisoned the well for other writers. Now, authors must have platforms. The platform requirement is not only entrenched, it’s being continually raised.

Roger Cooper, executive Vice President of I Books, Inc., puts it best: “The level of the platform keeps increasing. It used to be that you could have a column in a regional newspaper and go on a couple of radio shows. Then it became more national syndication, then the Today Show or Dateline, and then Oprah or Dr. Phil. The bar keeps on being raised by publishers who, more and more, want authors who have higher platforms. It used to be a silver platform, then it became a gold platform, and now it’s a platinum platform.”

“It’s almost as if the marketing people want the book to sell without their doing a lot so they therefore rationalize the money that is spent on the book as an advance,” Cooper adds. “It shows a lack of creative energy in making something happen on the publishers’ side. Even if you have a medical book by a doctor who is brilliant and incredibly well credentialed on a subject that is very provocative and salable, if that doctor doesn’t have a platform, you have a diminished chance of selling that book.”

“The bar for platforms has been raised to almost absurd heights,” according to agent Sharlene Martin, of Martin Literary Management in Encino, California. “A whole plethora of good writing is being ignored because it doesn’t have the promotional hooks that publishers are now demanding. If you have a book on woodworking, you better be a contributor to a woodworking magazine, have appeared on shows about woodworking, give seminars on it, speak about it all the time, have your own newsletter and Web site.”

Agent Richard Curtis offers an encouraging note: “The bar in publishing has been raised extremely high, but not impossibly high,” he says. “A good book will still rise to the surface if it’s a really good book.”

And don’t forget lucky breaks! Sometimes endorsements from famous authors, experts, or celebrities help position a book. It’s not just what you know, but who you know. Your book has to be a quality book, but it doesn’t hurt to be validated by respected sources who think you have something important to say.

Certain rare and special ideas can transcend the platform requirement. These books touch a particular nerve, involve innovative theories or capture the public’s heart. Prime examples of these qualities are the Chicken Soup for the Soul series of books (Health Communications, Inc.) and The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown and Company, 2000).