How to Build a Platform When You're a Closet Introvert
Platform
I’ve finally understood what platform means thanks to these 2 great blogs.
Anna Sproul-Latimer On "building your author platform" & the single most difficult mindset shift required for publishing success.
Jane Friedmann A Definition of Author Platform.
The image above is my idea of heaven. Sat on my own. With a view. With peace. With my thoughts. I’ve become increasingly pissed off at the idea of having to build a platform. I mean, fuck off, that’s the point in being a writer? You like books not other people. You trust what you read in books not what comes out of other people’s mouths. I avoid being too friendly cos I come over as an extrovert. I’m really funny. I’m cutting. Sarcastic. Real. Spontaneous. I don’t even know how I do that because my real status, state, who I am underneath, is quiet.
I love a writer who has been quiet in the world and understood, and watched, and interrogated ordinary people. Seen how they function. And when they tell me on the page I am so happy to know there are people like me. The exact fucking opposite of the fucking all bells and whistles social media. Did it for a few years. Hated it. Felt totally fake. Did it to keep my Reno project afloat. I'd feel buoyant sometimes. Even do a little DJ stint in my bedroom with Reno tunes. Ones I love. Have a little boogie. But ultimately it is like eating a croissant for your tea — absolutely unsatisfactory. Whereas beans and lentils can seem fucking torturous to your mind but with the right herbs and spices you feel intoxicated in a nice way. Sedated. May be a better word. You feel good and wholesome. You have that view. That single platform view where all is right, and this is one of your best moments in your life when all is right and the statis that every spiritual book ever talks about.
And then I read these two articles. Serendipity. I stumble across Neon and Anna, who nestles Jane's blog, through looking for Kate McKean who I spoke to 13 years ago when I was trying to pitch the book I am now writing: 4-dimensions, 8-stations, 12-words. Don’t switch off I am not plugging it to you. I don’t give a fuck about that. What I realise for the first time is I couldn’t write it until I had lived it. 13 years ago it is called The Amelioration of Miss Amelia Samuels. My dad’s name is Samuels. It is an indirect link to my dad’s unbroken link to slavery. And my unfinished business with John McGrath now the CEO and Artistic Director of Factory International. And all the upset I feel about my treatment in the business. But nobody ever ever ever is going to give you their power. You have to stand up and take it. You have to burn the plantation down. In the Ruins of the Big House cost Factory International £100,000 to produce + R&D. And it probably took £2.50. It’s such a triumph to make all that happen. To walk down those stairs. To no longer feel beholding. Back on topic.
I thought mistakenly that I had to manufacture a new audience, a platform out of thin air. Beg people on social media to like me. But I don’t. I just have to remember all the people I have dealt with along my 8-project journey. All the people I genuinely get on with. All the heads of industry whose paths I cross. I have to understand how to demark them for book proposal means. Like, I can call Manchester’s mayor. But I won’t add him to my new, genuine, newsletter. But I will add to my newsletter the 10 or so Factory International employees who are closet artist, and, also, will, I don’t even have to ask, love the look of that platform. Who are working in a building that does bells and whistles somersaults to entice a following. It will take years for Factory International to find its stride. Like I had to find my stride
You cannot manufacture your stride. You have to learn your stride. Practise your stride. Inhabit your stride. I inhabit my stride. Now. I am equipped to have a genuine following of people who love things that I love. Who want to sit by a lake and contemplate. Who loves quiet. Who love interesting stimulating conversations on the page. Who marvel at the caves where man first draws a line. Or what the fuck was cannibalism about? Or ossuaries? Or Celtic rings? And why are the pyramids jumping up all over the place at a certain time?
I’m gonna spend time this week working out this list. Man, I have a real friendship with Dave Moutrey who was the CEO of HOME and is now the Director of Manchester Culture. He’ll love my newsletter. And I can tell Manchester City of Lit Ivan to fuck off and both of us laugh. These are all hard won. Not because I cringed or begged or liked, but because in my own Toussaint Louverture way I demand respect for myself from me. If you can’t be it, fake it. I faked self-respect, the you-can’t-fuck-with-me type of self respect for many years. Now it is becoming real. I am ameliorated. Not spelled as assimilated. My blue denim ball gown is exactly me. Bette Davis has always been my spirit animal.
Read Anna and Jane and also be set free.