Platforms...

.... and I am not talking shoes.

According to June Clark, former agent and now owner of Get There Media, a platform is everything. At the HRW Conference last month, she told attendees that who you are is often more important than how well you write. Get There Media is in business to help authors "build their brand". Check out their web site: www.gettheremedia.com.

She had a lot of good suggestions (blogging is one - so I can put a check in that box - though I have to work on getting followers. She told us how to do that: comment on other bloggers sites that are similar and leave a link back to your own blog.)

Another suggestion was to get a web site, or at least register the name. That way you can make sure that it matches whatever name you are going to write under. She also suggested doing an internet search for the name you want to write under to see what else pops up. You may decide to use another name.

Or, you may go the other route; she mentioned a writer who uses the name Norma Roberts. Guess why?

Other suggestions were to use social networks like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, and to check out and use Writer or Reader Social Networks, like Goodreads, and RedRoom and Amazon.

In a nutshell, we aspiring authors need to get our names out there, and dvelop a following before we ever even try to get published. We need to be able to show a publisher that we are able to write and network to sell books.

So, has anyone found success after doing any of this?

I'm finding that it is a lot harder than it looks.