What's Your Platform?

What do you stand for, believe in, work hard to achieve, inspire others to do, base your existence on, or love to do? This could be your platform. In a nutshell, your platform is your business or your cause, this is what your book is designed to support. If there is one thing I try to hammer home to my clients it is this – writing your book should be about more than just the book. Your book should be designed to leverage your platform.

Think of your book as a tool to bring greater reach, visibility, understanding, and acceptance of your platform. Perhaps you are a makeup artist and your platform is making every woman look glamorous all the time. Your book should support that platform. In it, you will explain what glamour is, why you believe it’s important, how women can glam up for any occasion, where to find glam products, photos or examples of glamorous “everyday women,” what men can do to encourage the glam in their women, and the benefits of adding glam to one’s image. 

Maybe your platform is attached to a cause rather than your business. A friend of mine is passionate about ensuring that senior citizens live comfortable, enjoyable lives and are able to have positive experiences. She founded an organization called GrandWish Foundation fueled by her loving relationship with her grandmother. What an amazing platform on which to build a book to encourage the care, support, attention, and advocacy of senior citizens.   

Basically, your platform is your passion, your driving force, your expertise or experience. Use it as inspiration for the content of your book and to determine a plan and an outline for your book. Knowing what you want your book to accomplish for your platform is an essential step towards achieving success. If you don’t know what you wish to accomplish with your book, none of your results will satisfy you. You’ll be constantly trying to measure insignificant milestones or goals that others measure, but aren’t really important to you. 

So, whether your book is complete or you have yet to start it, upon what platform will you build your best-selling book?