Welcome back to your Do-it-Yourself MFA program.

Okay, so what do you need to have in place before you start trying to find an agent (or a publisher if you skip the agent route–more on that in future posts)?

Platform

Platform is a term that you’ll hear people use a lot and it means, pretty much, your reach.  How visible you are and where you are visible, your reputation (do people respect what you have to say?  Are you an authority in the field?), and public reaction.  Think of it as a literal invisible platform that you’ll stand on at a rally.  Where do you visualize its placement?

Think of your reach as a literal — if invisible — platform that you’ll stand on at a rally, and think about where this platform would be placed. Are you on the main stage for your niche? Are you sort of on a side stage? Um … are you in the back of the audience, not even on a platform at all, with several heads blocking your ability to see the main stage?

Stephen Colbert is definitely on the main stage, because he has a hit television show and can sell his book via that medium. But plenty of people who do not have hit television shows will also be on the main stage when it comes to their smaller niches in the world.

Are you gulping right now and thinking, “But I don’t have a platform!” Well, actually, if you have a blog, you do. Your blog is part of your platform. It has reach if you have readers.

The best thing you can do right now is build your blog, because it is a litmus test of how people respond to your writing (and books are obviously about writing). Blogging has changed the publishing world, since anyone can self-publish her thoughts and build a following before her first book hits the shelves. (In the past, you needed to do a lot of freelance work to build your author platform, which meant even more hoops to jump through. Be thankful you’re living in the blogging age.)

How many readers are “a lot of readers” differs from writer to writer — a big six publishing company* is going to have a different opinion about that than a smaller independent publisher.

If you don’t have a blog, start one. And dedicate time to writing it. Here is all the blogging advice I have to give in how to build a following.

Social media extends your reach, too. Get involved in Facebook; get involved with Twitter. But know that even agents can distinguish between organic followers (those who are genuinely interested in what you have to say) and filler followers (people who follow you numerically, but aren’t really reading you from TweetDeck), and they don’t put a ton of stock in those numbers.

In the end, a blog, with long-term statistics provided by Statcounter or Sitemeter and documented proof of your readership, is the best measurable platform as well as sense of your writing style.

Media

Agents and publishers are going to want to know your media contacts.  Do you have any?  You probably do if you think about this long enough.  Start with the newspapers and magazines and television programs most likely to feature your book–do you know anyone there?  Build relationships if you don’t have any yet.  And do this before you start looking for an agent because they’re going to want to know if you have any connections.

And this is not the time to be shy–you will need to call in favours.  And be clear that your media contacts can ask favours from you.

Self-Publicity

Are you okay with public speaking, with talking about your book, with shmoozing and attending events?  No?  Well, then book publishing might not be for you because authors today are expected to be their own publicists along with their actual publicists.  You need to be willing to get out there and give interviews and attend events and speak about your book effusively.  And if you can’t do that, practice.  Because how you come across to the agent matters too.

Thick Skin

If you try to publish a book, you will get rejected a lot. First, you will be rejected by agents. If you sign with an agent, you will be rejected by publishers. If published, your book will be rejected by critics, or by people who you wish would buy it and talk about it. There is a lot of rejection inherent in publishing, and before you begin, you need to know if the rejection is worth the outcome. Because damn, the rejection stings.

This is the way I think about it: I really wanted to get married, and I knew that if I wanted to get married, I also had to put myself out there and date and possibly get my heart stomped on pretty hard. And plugging away at that sucked. I hated not knowing if all the hard work of dating was going to pay off with a long-term relationship, and I based my desire to get married on a leap of faith that it would be worth all the nights I cried because I either couldn’t meet anyone or I had managed to find the biggest losers (Abortion Man ring any bells?). I was willing to put my heart through just about anything to get to a good partnership (oh, yes: I also wasn’t willing to settle).

There were two other places I was willing to push myself and go through all the disappointments in order to reach the goal: Building my family and publishing a book. Everything else — not worth it to me. There have been plenty of other things I’ve wanted in life, including a hit show on Broadway called “Jazz Hands,” but they aren’t worth the disappointments that come with putting your heart out there.

And you may look inward right now and say, “You know what, as much as I want to publish a book, I think I’m going to skip straight to self-publishing, because I really don’t think I could handle the rejection now. I’ll wait until Melissa discusses that in a few weeks.” It is good to know yourself — life is short, and it is not worth using up emotional energy on projects that are not grabbing you by the ovaries. Or you may decide this isn’t the time, but another point in your life will be the time. Or you may already have a thick skin and say, “Rejection shmjection! Who cares what others think as long as I get to that end point of seeing my book at the local bookstore?”

And that, my friend, is your best asset when it comes to getting through the next steps.

Time

Lastly, do you have the time to dedicate to this? People will expect you to make the time, especially if you’ve asked them to make time by considering your work. Do you have the time to make edits and return e-mails and send out more queries? Because other people will get pretty damn cranky with you if you do this half-assed.

If you’re the type (and be honest) who would receive an e-mail from an agent and sit on it for several days before deciding that you just don’t have the time to do this, I’d probably stop before you begin.

I treat the business side of writing with the urgency of stop-drop-and-roll: I forgo other things–such as relaxing at night–to return e-mails in a timely manner, complete edits, or get whatever to whomever. People want to work with others who are focused and serious, so weigh out whether you have the energy and time to dedicate to this.

Okay class, any questions on what was discussed here?  Please leave them in the comment section below and I will answer them in the comment section below.  Keep in mind that I have a lot of topics to cover so your question may be answered in a future installment (see below).  So keep your questions to platform, media, self-publicity, thick skin, time, or other things you’re wondering about before you get started.

Heads Up and Looking Back: topics that will be covered in future installments or that were covered in past installments

1. Before You Even Get Started

2. THIS POST

3. How to Write a Non-Fiction Book Proposal and Choose Your Chapters

4. Why You Need an Agent

5. How to Find and Sign with a Reputable Agent

6. Querying Agents

7. What Happens Next–Waiting for a Book Sale

8. No Agent? Other Paths to Publication

9. What to Expect After You Sign a Book Deal

10. Be Your Own Publicist

11. A Mishmash of Leftover Questions and Answers

*I’ll use this term in the future to distinguish between big six publishing, small press publishing, and self-publishing.

You’ve probably read by now one of the 8000 posts out there about abortions performed after IVF.  You know, the one where they paint women who utilize IVF as desiring “designer goods” (because that’s the reason why people do selective reduction–to get a Vera Wang baby).  This is my take over at BlogHer on whether or not this is even newsworthy, because seriously, how many assumptions can the BBC make?

I believe strongly in the statement I make at the end: choices are not choices if they only have an “in” door and no “out” door.

*******

On a lighter note, I also made a step-by-step video/photo post about making ice cream (complete with two recipes).  After I finished making the ice cream and eating two bowls (okay, maybe three bowls), I went to clean out the freezing canister and I noticed that water was squirting out a hole in the unblemished metal.  In other words, not another scratch in sight, but water…wait, scratch that…freezing gel was pouring out through the hole.

Of course my ice cream maker doesn’t sell replacement bowls.  I was going to buy a new ice cream maker, but my mother ended up offering hers.  In the meantime, I left the ice cream in the freezer and Josh went to eat it that night despite my warning that who knows if freezing gel leaked into the batch (unlikely since it was frozen and therefore on the other side of the metal).  That’s how good the ice cream is–it’s worth risking the consumption of saline gel.

*******

The Weekly What If: what if you could own any type of store?  What kind of space would you create?  What would you sell?  Where would it be?  Would it be a restaurant, book store, candy shop?  If the chance to succeed was not a factor and people would flock to your retail space wherever it was, what type of business would you run?

Obviously piggybacking on yesterday’s post about Politics and Prose.  Sniff.

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And now, the blogs…

An Unexpected Life has a post about Facebook.  She explains how seeing the baby announcements are like hearing someone fight–you don’t want to listen, and yet you can’t turn away.  She points out the ways she’ll never be able to participate in the Facebook game–even once she reaches parenthood.  It’s a well-written post.

Dear Rowan has a post about a dream that led her to her new doctor.  It’s crazy dream interpretation, moving between the asleep world and the awake world.  I just thought it made for an interesting post.

Find Joy Now has an incredibly beautiful post about everyone else but her.  She asks, “How do you tell someone who is so thrilled and excited with life and the new life growing inside of them how much you are aching inside without them taking it personally and then hating you for bringing them down?”  It is about knowing your personal limits and recognizing the rain falling on your head when everyone else seems to be basking in sunshine.

Lastly, Just Keep Swimming has a post about the other teachers at her school who complain about the students during lunch.  She points out the inherent problem with this, explaining, “There is a lot of self-righteous cynicism among the teachers at my school; since we spend 1 hour a day with each of these children, we are obviously experts in parenting. ”  And for an infertile woman, who wants a child in her home to parent, the idea of directing hatred towards a child is unfathomable.

The roundup to the Roundup: Please give your thoughts about the abortion after IVF articles.  Or make some ice cream this summer (so damn easy).  Answer the Weekly What If.  And lots of great blogs to read.

Politics and Prose, my favourite book store, is being sold.  After the story broke in the Washington Post, a few people emailed and jokingly said, “you should buy it!” but I just sat against the wall at the twins’ gymnastics class and read it from my blackberry and cried.  I’m really not great with change and the fact was, my first hopeful thought before the reality kicked in that no bank would give me a loan for this coupled with the knowledge that I have no retail book experience, was that I would love to own it.  I would love to sit in that central desk and help customers find books, introduce authors, and flip through the publisher’s catalogs.

I had my very first reading at Politics and Prose, and I will never be able to express how grateful I am to Carla Cohen for sitting with me in her office beforehand, chatting about the book and throwing out suggestions for future ones, and then infusing me with a booster shot of confidence when I realized that I had left my notes at home.

I had my first dates with Josh at Politics and Prose.  That’s where we went a’courting.  That’s where I learned that Josh wasn’t going to move to New York and instead he was going to stay and love me.  That’s where we planned our wedding.  That’s where we wrote our thank you notes after the wedding.  It’s where we started bringing the twins once we could bring them out of the house.  It’s where they love crawling into the little nook under the stairs.

It’s where I hung out with my friends.  It’s where I wrote the majority of my translation project for graduate school.  It’s where I spent so much time that the old cafe owners named a drink after me.  It’s where a large chunk of the books on our bookshelves come from.

You can understand why Washingtonians are emotional and we never want it to change, even if we knew that at the end of the day, the owners were only human and this needed to happen at some point.  But we can never thank Carla Cohen and Barbara Meade enough for starting this space and building it into the sort of space you would want to come back to, day after day, year after year.  And that’s why it meant so much to me to have my first reading there.  Because it was like coming home.

Even if you do not have specific Politics and Prose memories like me, I would love to hear about your favourite book store and how it rests in a little nook in your heart.

I once went on a camping trip as a child and right when we got to the site, there was a huge storm.  The counselors set up our tents and then we rushed into them, our sleeping bags and back packs inside soaked trash bags.  We zipped up the door, damp but out of the rain–setting up our sleeping bags in the cramped space, trying to keep our gear away from the nylon side walls.

There were three of us in the tent.  One girl was my best friend (a girl from Pakistan), and the other was an older girl that I didn’t know well who was deaf.  The counselors brought us cups of peanuts and raisins as a snack and the three of us played cards all afternoon.  It was the coziest time; curled up on our sleeping bags, our tent miraculously dry in the storm.  And when you think about it, almost nothing in common beyond the fact that we all ended up at the same camp in the same storm.

I still ask about them when I bump into their mothers back in our old neighbourhood.

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The underbelly of the dark side is the cozy tent in the center of the rain storm and the people who end up inside with you.  It seems as if we end up together mostly by accident–we choose a house and end up within walking distance of a new friend.  We swing by our cousin’s workplace and a few years later, end up with her co-worker as your husband.  We click on a link and start reading a new blog and years later laugh about how we found one another.

As I said in the other post, my internal world is certainly being affected by that storm outside–no one can have that much pressure and anger and frustration and sadness around them and not have it seep into the way they feel as they rub up against the world.  But on paper, things are actually quite nice right now.  While I always have simmering anxieties and jealousies on the back burner, overall, I am in a happy and productive space.

And I have wonderful people in my tent.

On Monday night, Lindsay, Paz, Calliope, and N sucked up the meatlessness and took me to a dive-y little vegan restaurant that I love.  They wanted me to be able to order anything off the menu.  Calliope popped my lottery cherry and Lindsay ensured that she’d be receiving baguettes this summer and we all mocked Paz for having never seen the Goonies and we all squeamishly wondered about the two chairs in the bathroom that were set facing the toilet as if one were going to pee for an audience.

During the meal, Paz pulled out your gift.  I’m still not sure how she arranged this, but Paz, Lavender Luz, Leah, Jendeis, Lindsay, Vee, E’s Mama, Smokeandashesbaby, Lucy, JJ, HereWeGoAJen, N, Somewhat Ordinary, Sunny, Michell, Dora, Kym, and Calliope all commissioned a DC poet to construct a poem for me, weaving in their thoughts and snippets from my blog.

I know–your mouth is dropped open right now too?  When I try to tell this story to people, everyone starts crying as I did when Calliope read the poem.

The poem contains two stanzas of 18–double life–for my 36th birthday.  There are 613 characters in each stanza (including punctuation), because there is a belief in Judaism that pomegranates contain 613 seeds which stand for the 613 commandments in Judaism.  And, as the poet explains, “The reference to cross-pollinating alludes both to a way of generating fruit as well as to Mel’s knack for spreading ideas and connecting people; also, the name Melissa means bee, the supreme pollinator.”

The poem:

Pomegranate Lollipop
for Mel at 36

It could be a flavor: whimsical, comforting,
a blossom at the end of intention,
bracing at the start of each day—
a circle of taste, a fresh taste of hope,
kosher, of course, and mothering, life giving;
or it could be a song: lyric of uplift,
lyric of weeping and cheer, chai
for today and tomorrow, chai for the day
and the night, ditty against disappointment,
dirge becoming delight; or a map with a sign
aimed from IF to THEN, a map of the underworld
turned upside-down, spilling Persephone
out into sunlight, Demeter out of mourning,
casting the arils in loam along the path,
ousting the pockets of emptiness,
cross-pollinating ideas, until the tree hangs heavy—
every bough, fruited and flowered alike,
sharing the same root: Melissa.

It could be a flavor, a lyric or a map, but it’s mostly
a gift: for stirring up empathy, honesty, strength,
for being the change, for making the mix tape,
for soothing the wounds with words;
for tying the threads, for rounding the journey:
carrying what can’t be carried, blessing the fruit,
eating the seeds that bleed and are whole again;
the gift of baking bread for the hungry,
the gift of sitting down to the table of friendship,
singing “sitting all alone, not by myself / everybody’s
here with me” and making of the song
a feast, making it mean
what it means to each of us,
we who have wandered
the island, picked up the gifts
you have laid at our feet, we who stand
with you now on our own, calling you friend,
blessing, wellness, Mel, Melissa.

*******

In the places where it matters–Josh, the twins, my family, my incredible friends–I am inside the tent.  The rest of it–the failed cycles and the jobs I didn’t get and the oil spill and the murmuring societal anger–is just rain on the roof.  And I would like to state for the record how lucky I feel that we all ended up running through the rain together, our possessions in trash bags, to get in this tent.

The Yin and the Yang–a post in two parts.

Perhaps this is a post that simply needs to be written every year or so.

There is a scene in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory where Augustus Gloops is stuck in the pipe and the chocolate is sloshing around him with nowhere to go.  “They could see it building up behind him in a solid mass, pushing against the blockage.  The pressure was terrific.  Something had to give.  Something did give, and that something was Augustus.”

I was reading a review of the book for Other People’s Rejection Letters in People magazine (yes, I read it cover to cover.  Don’t judge).  The reviewer pointed out, “A rejection letter can sway or scar a life, causing one person to give up his dreams, another to work harder.”  I haven’t read the book, but the concept of rejection is something that affects people in the same way in non-letter form.  Friendship that isn’t returned, a job that you don’t get, the negative cycle, the blog post that isn’t read or met with comments.  Rejection happens in subtle and obvious ways all day long.

I think it’s a special person–perhaps a more evolved person–who uses rejection to keep refueling them.  I think for the majority of us–myself included–rejection simply has a way of tearing the heart until you want to curl up on a bed and spend the afternoon crying.

And yes, while the sting of rejection usually fades, I haven’t found that it goads me on later.  I usually take rejection to simply be rejection–a declaration that I should set my sights elsewhere.

I cannot be the only one who is feeling this in the air, sensing the frustration all around me.  It is coming on a global level with the news saturated with stories ranging from unrest and disappointment to all out rage and destruction.  It is coming on a local level.  I recently joined a local listserv and my experience in the first few weeks have been marred with continuous bickering.  I get three digest emails a day filled with local news as well as name-calling, allegations, and people declaring how disgusted they are.  Quite an eye-opening welcome.

It is everything from Helen Thomas to entire hate sites set up to mock a single blogger and everything in between.

It is face-to-face and online.  Almost every conversation with a friend these past few weeks have utilized a few minutes discussing a slight or a feeling a sense of disquiet.  A feeling that something is not quite right within their relationships, their workplace, their marriage, their home.  It seems as if people are posting less and commenting less–something I associate with the disquiet I noticed last year.  It soon passed as the mood broke–which is not to say that life became perfect, world peace was achieved, and all relationships became harmonious, but there was definitely a change in mood within the blogosphere over summer and the disquiet returned in August.  It stuck around for a bit, and then passed again in the fall.

I distinguish this from personal moods.  It seems that we are in a period of disgust, frustration, unhappiness, and dissatisfaction and the blog posts (or also the lack-thereof) reflect this.  People seem to be nastier.  Shorter-tempered.  I am too.  And, at the same time, it’s a nice period of time in my life and my general daily mood seems in discordance with this larger mood.  But the emotional soup that exists outside the home changes how I’m processing my day-to-day.  I hope it’s working in the other direction too, but I fear that it’s more that the negativity is seeping into my personal mood.

I think Josh and my discussion on friendship and trusting people and building a relationship from afar all feeds into this general disquiet.  Is there a general lack of trust right now–with our world leaders, our family, our neighbours, our friends, our online connections?  Does that disquiet make us want to pull back, post less, comment less, interact less?

Poor Augustus Gloop shoots out of the pipe and into the Fudge Room and I think most of us are feeling this strange pressure and discontent building up behind us and it has the power to either shoot us forward energetically into the next mood–one where we take our disquiet and turn it around into positive change–or simply scar us (if not forever, than at least for the short-term) changing the way we view other people.

Have you noticed the dark side?  What are your feelings from inside the figurative tube, the chocolate sloshing around you?