Platforms...

I wish he'd told me to write another novel...

Hello Friends,

For those of you who don’t know, my most recent novel is out on submission. That means that my agent is trying to sell it to publishing houses. What that means for me is that I check my email about a thousand times a day to see if any houses are interested in picking up my book.

Since signing with my agent in January of 2024, I have written an additional two novels. They are stacking up, but we haven’t yet sold the first one. So, I asked Jud what I should be doing with my time while we waited to hear back from the publishing houses.

I was hoping he said to write another novel. Instead he said, grow your platform.

As any creative will tell you, this is the worst. It means having a wide digital presence. He suggested maybe I make some TikTok videos, but as previously discussed, I have a propensity for T-rex arming at inappropriate times, and the idea of me doing social media videos sent me into a deep depression for several days.

But, luckily for me, a kind friend has offered to help me figure out how to have a platform while not having to live on Instagram. It was suggested that I migrate my pre-existing blog to Substack. There are various reasons for this, but mostly it’s about online visibility. Apparently this is some sort of social media site that will make my writing more visible to new readers.

So, for the time being, most my blog posts are going to come from this platform. If you were subscribed to my old page, feel free to unsubscribe to that one. I migrated you to Substack, and I certainly don’t want to be spamming your inboxes.

There is pricing option available with Substack. You can pay for additional articles or donate to me, but the content you’ve been getting through my old site will still be for free on this site. I’m not migrating to make money (although I am a human and like money). I am rolling over to this site specifically for platform purposes, which is the vague way I will refer to me trying to market myself. I like to tell people that my lack of salesmanship is inherited. Apparently my dad used to sell agricultural sprinklers. You know the kind. They are giant and on wheels and they turn slowly through an entire field of corn or whatever. But he was terrible at it and survived by leaving a job that required him to sell something.

You can say the same about me. I am a terrible salesperson. I think you should spend your money on the things that are good or joyful for you. If that means buying a future book of mine, I’m on board. And if it doesn’t mean buying my writing, that’s cool too. But in the meantime, if you like reading my work you can do that still do that here.

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