Building Your Platform With a Niche

I’m sure a bunch of people have told you that you need a platform in order to sell a book.

What’s platform? I like to think of it as a foundation of experience and readership. For example, someone who has a newspaper column and/or a radio show has a stronger platform than someone with a few freelance newspaper bylines. Having a regular assignment or being a contributing editor at a glossy magazine is stronger than writing a personal blog with little traffic.

One of the ways to build your platform, is to find a niche. Carla King mastered that with writing about her passion and travels on her motorcycles. After writing about your niche topic, people start coming to you.

I want to let you know first hand, that it works.

I’m building a secondary platform (the first being travel) in the poker world. I started last year, and it’s really working. I started off writing for PPlayer/CardSquad with a big blog company called Weblogs, Inc. From there I spent a lot of time networking in Vegas at the World Series of Poker. When it was done, I had met someone who wanted to handover her column to me at BLUFF, a very large and respected glossy poker magazine. From there, the editors got to know me and offered me other assignments. At the same time, the editor of Woman Poker Player Magazine found out about my interest in writing about poker (I asked editors to give me assignments on my website) and now I have a regular column there, plus a cover feature article.
One article seemed to be leading to the next. Between the magazine articles, and networking in the blogsophere, I’ve built a good platform to continue writing in the poker industry. And now, assignments are coming in. I just got a great assignment with ForbesTraveler.com to review poker rooms in Las Vegas. See the cross over? Now I’ve combined my two interests, and hopefully the poker article will lead to additional general travel assignments with Forbes Traveler.

Then, of course, miracles can happen, too. I just won a seat to play poker on TV in July, and don’t think I’m not going to make the most of that exposure and lock up a book deal.

I’m not trying to brag about all this, I’m telling you in hopes that you can find a path of encouragement. This has only taken me a year. Find your niche, you can build a platform, too. Sometimes it takes a few years to build, but it doesn’t have to. Roll up your sleeves, dig right in, and get involved with publications that support your passion.

Bylines! Bylines! Bylines! You can do it.