Sixties Chick

… I’m afraid that in this difficult market, memoir is a particularly tough sell without a strong, proven platform. Good luck in this and in all future endeavors.

That was the gist of the rejection letter I received recently from an agent to whom I’d sent a book proposal the month before. I hadn’t sent it to her cold; I’d had an introduction from a friend of mine who was one of her authors. I knew from experience that you might as well throw a manuscript off the Ben Franklin Bridge as send it unsolicited. Like they say (along with the bit about “this great land of opportunity”), it’s who you know.

I’d put together a solid and interesting proposal for a book I’ve been working on for some time. I was sure the agent would love it; there was no question in my mind. It had taken me months to get it ready; revisions on the revisions, hours of long distance editing sessions with two of my most literary friends. There was a ten page narrative of what the book was about and a convincing marketing pitch of why anyone would care. Also included were brief, but intriguing chapter descriptions as well as two complete chapters.

The first chapter set the stage, finding myself unemployed at 58, a timely subject one would think. The other revolved around the Brazil years, with an honest account of my shadier gem smuggling period, and how it could have evolved from the days of dancing the Samba in a Philadelphia bank lobby with coconuts on my breasts.

To complete the very professional proposal package, I had even come up with my own cover illustration and 13 thumbnail drawings for chapter icons. The proposal was honed, well written and highly creative. Or so I thought.

What I didn’t know was the part about the platform. Seems I don’t have one. Feeling a bit perplexed, I did some research. Turns out, there are many kinds of platforms. There’s a railway platform, a party platform, an oil platform, a geological platform. There’s an economics platform, a computing platform, and a diving platform. And as every woman knows, there’s even a shoe platform – by far, the best kind.

For me, platform conjures up flat, heavy and immovable, something to hurl oneself off of.  (And I have done so many a time.) But that’s not the kind that gets a book published. Sarah Palin has that kind of platform.

It’s okay. It’s not the first time. Rejection, I’ve come to see, teaches self-love. Persistence. After licking my wounds, and quelling the voice in my head that carped, “Did you really think you had something worthwhile to say?” I go forward. I listen carefully for the next clue, for that hint of an opportunity, perhaps one that’s new, untried. I am attentive, willing.

Truth is, I never bothered much with platforms, mine or anyone else’s. My radar picks up other frequencies – always has. It tunes in on the more marginal-bizarre-NewAge-radical-rebellious-farfetched-alternatives that have the gall to show up without any platform whatsoever. I can’t help it. I couldn’t figure out how to do it any other way. It’s my story.

And it’s a pretty good one. A fun read at a minimum. How anyone could fail to see it – the exquisite absurdity of the quirky little tale that is my platformless life – is totally beyond me. I hear myself saying, “Step back, please; relax, there’s always another train!

Tags: book publishing, literary agent, platform

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