So What's Your Platform?
Great white shark terrorizes New England beach community…
12-year-old girl possessed by the devil…
Chances are good that most readers and film buffs can easily identify the film titles for the references above, which in movie industry lingo are coined “high-concept” terms. While these phrases don’t summarize the plot nuances and character developments necessary to sustain the interest of film-goers (and which are crucial aspects of their blockbuster successes), they are what hook us into buying a movie ticket or purchasing a DVD to be entertained. A similar model exists in the publishing world, which is often referred to as a “platform”.
Defining the “platform” for a book influences everything from cover design, flap copy and publicity materials to decisions about touring, advertising and marketing/sales efforts. It also provides a focus for authors to talk about their work during interviews and tours. Publishing has become a challenging environment for both newly published and best-selling authors alike, particularly in the fiction genre. Fueling this are the demands of an ever-tightening sales market, diminishing interview/review placement opportunities in traditional media venues and the complexities of breaking into the seemingly unreachable bestseller lists. Never before has it become so important for authors to find new ways to market their work – and finding a platform within a novel is an important step towards marketing a book to its targeted audience(s).
As the daughter of, and publicist for, New York Times best-selling author David Morrell, I’ve been involved with the publishing industry my whole life. His award-winning first novel FIRST BLOOD was published when I was a toddler. It felt natural to me to pursue a career in the industry. After earning my BA in English I took a job in the Random House publicity department, where I discovered that other children of authors had started their careers. Sixteen years later, I now have my own company through which I work as a freelance publicist. My primary client is my father, for whom I recently coordinated the entire publicity campaign and author tour for his new best-selling dark-suspense thriller CREEPERS (CDS Books, September 2005), which I will use an example.
After reading CREEPERS in manuscript format, many months before publication date, my first goal was to find a way to distinguish the book from others of the genre, to find a way to talk about the novel in two minutes or less and capture the interest of a reviewer or reader. (Keep in mind that a reviewer for a major newspaper receives hundreds of books per week and the average book buyer, collectors and hardcore fans aside, makes buying decisions based upon a staggering selection of books.)
I first needed to define what genre(s) the book was working within. CREEPERS is a cross-genre novel containing elements of mystery, horror, thriller and suspense – I describe it as a dark-suspense thriller. I didn’t want to call it a “horror” novel as I felt it would have too strongly pigeon-holed the book and alienated the mystery/thriller fans. I didn’t want to call it a true thriller or I would have lost the horror audience. There is overlap between the two genres; however, many true horror fans aren’t usually attracted to a hardcore thriller, or vice versa.
It wasn’t enough to simply describe CREEPERS as a dark-suspense thriller, I also had to define what the book was about. I needed a platform, a hook, a way to pinpoint the central theme the plot focuses around. Again, if it takes longer than two minutes to talk about, I’ve lost the reviewer or reader. With CREEPERS, my father had a really interesting platform – urban exploration. “Creepers” is the slang term for urban explorers: history and architecture enthusiasts who share a keen fascination for exploring abandoned buildings and tunnels. Once I had pinpointed the genre and platform, I was more easily able to briefly describe the book and plot, as follows in the first paragraph of the press release:
“On a cold October night, five people gather in a run-down motel on the Jersey shore and begin preparations to break into The Paragon Hotel. Built in the glory days of Asbury Park by a reclusive millionaire, the magnificent structure, which foreshadowed the beauties of Art Deco architecture, is now boarded-up and slated for demolition.
The five people are “creepers”, the slang term for urban explorers: city archeologists with a passion for investigating abandoned buildings and their dying secrets. On this evening they are joined by a reporter who wants to profile them, - anonymously, as this is highly illegal activity - for a New York Times article…”
In some cases it is not so easy to identify what the platform is; indeed a book can have many platforms. Sometimes an author is too close to their book to be able to recognize the core subject matter which makes the book marketable and makes their particular novel stand out from others of its genre. A platform can’t be forced and an author should never compromise their artistic integrity or vision to force a book into a “mold”, it should come naturally.
ReadersRoom.com has invited me to write a monthly column for the site about publicity and marketing. Each month in my column called “Beyond the Spine…” I will discuss a new topic and address questions submitted through the site. My goal is to provide aspiring and existing authors with advice they can carry forward into marketing their own work. Who knows – maybe your book could be the next EXCORCIST or JAWS, the breakout novel which defines a genre of its own.
Happy writing!
Sarie Morrell.
Please address all questions for Sarie Morrell to readersroom2@aol.com.
12-year-old girl possessed by the devil…
Chances are good that most readers and film buffs can easily identify the film titles for the references above, which in movie industry lingo are coined “high-concept” terms. While these phrases don’t summarize the plot nuances and character developments necessary to sustain the interest of film-goers (and which are crucial aspects of their blockbuster successes), they are what hook us into buying a movie ticket or purchasing a DVD to be entertained. A similar model exists in the publishing world, which is often referred to as a “platform”.
Defining the “platform” for a book influences everything from cover design, flap copy and publicity materials to decisions about touring, advertising and marketing/sales efforts. It also provides a focus for authors to talk about their work during interviews and tours. Publishing has become a challenging environment for both newly published and best-selling authors alike, particularly in the fiction genre. Fueling this are the demands of an ever-tightening sales market, diminishing interview/review placement opportunities in traditional media venues and the complexities of breaking into the seemingly unreachable bestseller lists. Never before has it become so important for authors to find new ways to market their work – and finding a platform within a novel is an important step towards marketing a book to its targeted audience(s).
As the daughter of, and publicist for, New York Times best-selling author David Morrell, I’ve been involved with the publishing industry my whole life. His award-winning first novel FIRST BLOOD was published when I was a toddler. It felt natural to me to pursue a career in the industry. After earning my BA in English I took a job in the Random House publicity department, where I discovered that other children of authors had started their careers. Sixteen years later, I now have my own company through which I work as a freelance publicist. My primary client is my father, for whom I recently coordinated the entire publicity campaign and author tour for his new best-selling dark-suspense thriller CREEPERS (CDS Books, September 2005), which I will use an example.
After reading CREEPERS in manuscript format, many months before publication date, my first goal was to find a way to distinguish the book from others of the genre, to find a way to talk about the novel in two minutes or less and capture the interest of a reviewer or reader. (Keep in mind that a reviewer for a major newspaper receives hundreds of books per week and the average book buyer, collectors and hardcore fans aside, makes buying decisions based upon a staggering selection of books.)
I first needed to define what genre(s) the book was working within. CREEPERS is a cross-genre novel containing elements of mystery, horror, thriller and suspense – I describe it as a dark-suspense thriller. I didn’t want to call it a “horror” novel as I felt it would have too strongly pigeon-holed the book and alienated the mystery/thriller fans. I didn’t want to call it a true thriller or I would have lost the horror audience. There is overlap between the two genres; however, many true horror fans aren’t usually attracted to a hardcore thriller, or vice versa.
It wasn’t enough to simply describe CREEPERS as a dark-suspense thriller, I also had to define what the book was about. I needed a platform, a hook, a way to pinpoint the central theme the plot focuses around. Again, if it takes longer than two minutes to talk about, I’ve lost the reviewer or reader. With CREEPERS, my father had a really interesting platform – urban exploration. “Creepers” is the slang term for urban explorers: history and architecture enthusiasts who share a keen fascination for exploring abandoned buildings and tunnels. Once I had pinpointed the genre and platform, I was more easily able to briefly describe the book and plot, as follows in the first paragraph of the press release:
“On a cold October night, five people gather in a run-down motel on the Jersey shore and begin preparations to break into The Paragon Hotel. Built in the glory days of Asbury Park by a reclusive millionaire, the magnificent structure, which foreshadowed the beauties of Art Deco architecture, is now boarded-up and slated for demolition.
The five people are “creepers”, the slang term for urban explorers: city archeologists with a passion for investigating abandoned buildings and their dying secrets. On this evening they are joined by a reporter who wants to profile them, - anonymously, as this is highly illegal activity - for a New York Times article…”
In some cases it is not so easy to identify what the platform is; indeed a book can have many platforms. Sometimes an author is too close to their book to be able to recognize the core subject matter which makes the book marketable and makes their particular novel stand out from others of its genre. A platform can’t be forced and an author should never compromise their artistic integrity or vision to force a book into a “mold”, it should come naturally.
ReadersRoom.com has invited me to write a monthly column for the site about publicity and marketing. Each month in my column called “Beyond the Spine…” I will discuss a new topic and address questions submitted through the site. My goal is to provide aspiring and existing authors with advice they can carry forward into marketing their own work. Who knows – maybe your book could be the next EXCORCIST or JAWS, the breakout novel which defines a genre of its own.
Happy writing!
Sarie Morrell.
Please address all questions for Sarie Morrell to readersroom2@aol.com.
1 Comments:
Great post, Sarie. Funny, I just talked about high concept in my blogcast. When I was writing screenplays, I hated the idea, but I understood the need for it.
Now I find myself applying it to my novels as well.
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