Blog Post One: Platforms and Werewolves

December 24rd, 2023

When I was in second grade, my parents gave me a notebook with ponies on the front where I began to write little stories and illustrate them, so you could say that I’ve been a writer for a long time—maybe not a great one at first, but after twenty-three years I’ve made some progress. This summer I had the opportunity to pitch my children’s story to an editor from a publishing company, and even though she said she loved the story, she also said that I didn’t have enough of a platform for them to consider it. That’s why I’ve started this website and this blog—it is the start to my platform.

I’ll be honest, platform building feels like I’m stumbling my way through a giant, dark forest. I don’t yet understand the landscape—people keep talking about platform, but what exactly do they mean? I now know that platform in the writing industry has a lot to do with your ability to market your book, but what does that look like for me? I’m not a website designer, so why on earth am I stumbling my way through WordPress? It’s like a game I loved to play as a child—werewolf. My heart pounded as I crept through the dark rooms, and though I trembled with fear and excitement, I kept going, because the whole game was so thrilling. And sometimes, I tripped and the dark and wanted to throw something because I stubbed my toe. Like the game of werewolf, there’s a thrill that comes with starting this website, because it’s a big step towards one day being a published children’s book writer. But sometimes I also want to throw the computer and the website out of the window, because it is a frustrating process. So, this website isn’t going to be perfect. But I will learn, and it will get better.

I’ve decided that I’m going to self-publish that children’s story that I pitched to the editor this summer. I’ll document the self-publishing journey on this blog—it’ll be a good exercise in platform building. Of course, I don’t know much more about self-publishing than I do about building websites and platforms, but that’s the thing about journeys: you always start at the beginning. If you stick with it long enough, you make progress. So, join me on this journey through the deep, dark forest of the publishing industry. The path to publication might be long and hard, full of obstacles and unknowns—but full of thrills.