Platform

I need some

In the last two years I’ve worked to become a writer. I’ve taken workshops and seminars, met many wonderful fellow writers, engaged in the writing community, and done my best to learn this new craft in my usual non-academic, non-linear way.

I have wandered the path from unconsciously incompetent to consciously incompetent¹ to, I like to think, consciously competent at times. I still have much to learn, and may or may not ever get to the point of unconscious competence 24/7. Is anyone ever there?

I’ve written this Substack every week for more than two years, I’ve had a few articles accepted by fancy-shmancy publications, and I’ve written and damn near completed a book.

None of that, it turns out, is super helpful without platform.

According to our current overlord AI: For a writer, a "platform" refers to their ability to reach and connect with potential readers or clients. It's a combination of their public presence, reputation, and influence within their writing niche. Essentially, it's the writer's ability to leverage their reach to promote their work and build a career.

In other words, it’s “how you going to sell this thing, who you going to sell it to, and who’s going to notice that you did?”

Well… those are very good questions.

You kind folks reading my Substack are my platform, as is my shitshow of a Facebook account that is often busy rabble-rousing and being slightly obnoxious.

I have a Bluesky account that I tend to with some regularity.

I keep trying to like Instagram but I mostly fail. So many clicks for a quarter of the fun of TikTok. So very many selfies. What is this modern obsession with placing self in the scene?

Or maybe it’s not new? Maybe the Nazca lines are just alien selfies?

Back to platform. I’m at the point now of querying agents, hoping one will choose to represent me and promote my book to a Big Five publishing house. I’ve written the query letter, gathered “comps,” books that are comparable to mine and share a theoretical audience and shelf space at a book store, and begun assembling the entire book proposal.

I am weak on platform.

And I’m too old tired lazy annoyed OK, fine, I can’t be bothered to do whatever would be required to gain a meaningful following on Only Fans. All that stripping and bumping and grinding and such. It might disturb the beagle.

I lack influencer savvy and, more importantly, interest. I wander away from social media because the tea kettle boiled, or perhaps I had a thought. When I schedule it (Monday, 11:00 am, Instagram, repeat weekly) I find it in no way solves the problem of what to post that will prompt engagement (even mine). I do know that a picture of my dog will garner far more attention and likes than something I’ve labored over for hours.

I’ve added my website, Substack address, and Bluesky to my email signature line, hoping that my accountant, all the people I owe money to, ActBlue, and the Amazon return personnel will be drawn to the mysteries of those links and subscribe to my stuff.

I will post a plea on Facebook for people to call in favors with their friends— please subscribe to this Substack I know, and I’ll forget the $10 you borrowed in 1978. I’ll post more dog photos, and #writingcommunity posts on Bluesky hoping to enlist new friends, as I’ve followed strangers there announcing their entree into the publishing world. It all seems very unlikely to result in the thousands more people I need subscribing to my work to impress a publisher.

The business of writing has a lot to do with the craft of writing. But it also has a lot to do with the craft of enlisting friends, fans, writers, readers, strangers, and muck-a-mucks in the publishing world. People need to know who you are and have at least a passing interest in what you’re doing before you’re published.

According to lore, D. H, Lawrence liked to climb Mulberry trees nude, saying it stimulated his imagination. It stimulated more than that, as Lady Chatterly’s Lover was banned in at least eight countries, eventually being published at a price women and the working poor could afford, outraging the wealthy white men who wanted words, and sexual gratification, all to themselves.

Now that’s building platform.

1. And if you know me at all, you know I bought the domains consciouslyincompetent.com and consciouslycompetent.com