Ask me anything...about platform!

AMA about social media use and presence, how to find your readers, what platform really means, whether you need platform, newsletter creation and more.

Dear writer friends,

If everything has gone as planned, this post finds me in Mexico in the region known as Costalegre that I wrote my historical novel—by the same name—about. We stay with a relative of my husband’s each time we come here, and it’s in viewing distance of the compound that I chose to place all of my artist characters inside as they waited out the coming—and the passing—of World War II. In reality, many of the exiled European surrealists were sheltered by the art collector and heiress Peggy Guggenheim in her New York City townhouse during Hitler’s reign. In my book, they’re sheltered by Peggy Guggenheim in her crumbling Mexican palace that overlooks an extremely dangerous part of the Pacific. That house— known as Tigre Del Mar— exists and can be rented if you have Beyoncé level income¹. I do not have Beyoncé level income, but I once got to visit Tigre Del Mar on the invitation of someone who does, and I think you’ll see from the photo why I chose to set a novel there:

The stunning—and surrealist—ocean property Tigre Del Mar in Costa Careyes that I chose to set my third novel, COSTALEGRE in.

In the meantime, AMA.

I’ll be in Mexico for ten days so I’d like to leave you with an #AMA (Ask me Anything) on a subject that puts hair onto the chest of even the most driven writer: that subject is “Platform.”

What the hell is a platform, and why do writers keep hearing that we need one?

• Is platform only based on social media numbers, and how high do those numbers need to be to be considered “platform?”

• Is there one right place to have a platform?

• Do we need to be in all the places, everywhere, online?

• Do I not stand a chance of getting published if I don’t have a platform?

• What the hell kind of platform can I hope for if I don’t know what I have or want to say?

These are just a few of the questions that might come up for you when you think about the dreaded Platform topic. But they’re just examples! I want you to pose whatever weighs on you, frightens or annoys you, or feels challenging as heck when you think about the P-word.

As with the last AMA, I’m opening up the comment section to both paid and unpaid subscribers. Mostly, I’ll be scanning your questions to make sure I’m hitting all the salient points in my March 27th masterclass on platform-building, but I’ll drop into the comments section at some point to respond to select questions after my vacation.

During my March 27th class, we’ll cover every aspect of Platform we can fit inside three hours, and we’ll also devote time to newsletter creation. (On this topic, I enjoyed this recent worksheet on newsletter building through Substack’s

Kailey Brennan DelloRusso

and

Courtney Kocak

in case you missed it)

You can sign up at anytime if you’d like to join us in this class— we had a truly meaningful evening at the last Turning Points masterclass on Time Management and I’m thrilled to see we have some writers joining us from there, again.

On the topic of Turning Points, the physical retreat…

Though May 1st seems far away, the deadline for applications to our October writing retreat in New Mexico is fast approaching.

Here’s a photograph of the fantastic writers we welcomed to our inaugural retreat last year:

By nature of the unique way in which the custom workshops are arranged, the Turning Points retreat is appropriate for writers at any stage or level. Published, unpublished, organized, disorganized, platform-full or platform-less, we got you. We consider men, women, and nonbinary folks and writing of any genre except for poetry. For all information, more photos of the retreat, testimonials and the application portal, please visit this page.

---

In the meantime, Ask Me Anything about Platform! It is a personal goal of mine to make this terrible word and the uninspiring tasks associated with it something inspiring and fun. Thanks for being here! I’ll see you post vacation.

1. An editor friend once gave me a hard time about the fact that there was a tiger on the cover of my novel COSTALEGRE even though there aren’t any tigers in Mexico, to which I say, this house is named “The Tiger of the Ocean” for a reason, and in my book, there are definitely tigers hiding in the dark.