Kel was eleven, but all day she’d rehearsed her date of birth as if she wa twelve, because you had to be twelve to get into Karisma on Nappy Night. She said it again in a whisper, to mek sure she hadn’t forgot: ‘Fourth of April 1986.’ One third of an inward-facing triangle, Kel huddled elbow-to-elbow wi Shaz and Rach, halfway down a queue that stretched length ut nightclub’s shiny steel wall. It were start of Christmas holidays but none of them wore a coat because, sez Shaz, Donny lasses didn’t. Their ponytails bobbed while their feet rocked between toe and heel in their platform shoes. Motion wa part shiver, part nerves, and part, for Kel, to tek her mind off her bare midriff, which she wa trying to keep sucked in.

At door, bouncer waited. He wa med of convex surfaces, all belly and baldhead, black fleece zipped tut chin. Int forty-five minutes they’d been waiting, his eyes hadn’t moved, staring ahead at Maccy D’s across way. He drew his mouth thin, downturned, like ham sandwich left too long in its lunchbox. Kel reckoned he had mards on because he wa working underage night instead of Freaky House Fridays, advertised on club’s wall wi pictures of older lads and lasses, dancing half naked and hanging backward off stripper poles. maddest house night in doncaster, poster reckoned.

Kel nodded int bouncer’s direction. ‘Reyt mard arse, him.’

Shaz squinted at him ovver her shoulder. ‘Fuck. Dint know it wa that cunt.’ She brought her lashes closer together until squint became a dead eye so intense she could have been asleep. ‘Twat turned our Louise away other week. Said her ID wa fake.’

‘God’s sake.’ Rach hugged hersen tight. ‘Bet you he waint lerrus in.’ Rach wa oldest looking lass in year seven. Two inches taller than Kel and Shaz, she already wore bras, an’ all.

‘Better do,’ Kel said under her breath. She’d never sin inside a nightclub. Shaz and Rach had both been loads of times before wi big sisters, big sisters who dint do underage no more, because now they looked old enough to sneak into proper nights, where everyone got off their faces, and – sez Shaz – sometimes shagged reyt ont dance floor. Kel weren’t sure what happened on Nappy Nights but she couldn’t ask because then everyone would know she didn’t know. All she could see in her head were disco lights cutting long bright cones through dark. Shaz reckoned there wa private booths where you could sit and sip Coke and smoke, tap your fagends into ashtrays like ladies did at pub. Tonight, after months of begging her mam, Kel wa only allowed out because she promised to stay wi her mates and not go anywhere on her own. It were just two of them at home so mam liked to keep her in. Kel thought maybe she wa lonely but you couldn’t tell your mates that. You had to say, ‘Mad bint’s strict as owt for no goodfucking reason.’

‘Oh aye, what you gunna do if he dunt let you in, like,’ Shaz asked Kel.

Kel inspected her arms, hairs bristly int cold; one lightning vein ran bluish down back of her hand. First time Shaz and Rach gorrin to Nappy Night they were still ten, and they’d been gerrin in ever since. ‘Just this once’, Mam had said and she always meant it, so this wa Kel’s only chance. Around them, queue swelled and ebbed, like worms Kel and Rach used to pluck, cardigan sleeves pulled ovver fingers, from nettle beds and behead. Kel couldn’t see anybody else from their school yet, and she’d never got bus home from town on her own. She weren’t sure she knew bus route number. And if Shaz and Rach gorrin and Kel didn’t, she couldn’t ask them to go home wi her. They’d never stop rippin piss. Again, Kel repeated to hersen, ‘Fourth of April 1986.’

Shaz laughed. ‘She’s only dezzy to gerrin because Ando might be here.’

‘I’m not,’ Kel said, cheeks warming. Her right hand clutched her chest, index finding thin V-shaped scratch sat between her collarbones, faintest ridge in smooth skin.

‘You are, an’ all.’ Rach punched soft fat at top of Kel’s arm.

They chanted, ‘Kel fo-or An-do, Kel fo-or An-do,’ while Kel willed red to go away from her face and now she needed a wee. ‘Kel fo-or An-do, Kel fo-or An-do!’

‘Shurrup, will yer?’ Kel scanned faces int queue, searching for heads turned toward them, ears listening in.

‘You said you’d lerrim finger you ont school field if he tried.’ Shaz said it loud on purpose. Lads behind looked ovver, raised eyebrows, smirked.

‘As if I did.’ Kel sucked in her stomach. She weren’t even reyt sure what fingering was.

Her bladder tightened, fuller.

‘You did,’ Shaz said. ‘Cleggy told us.’

‘Wunt lerrim near me.’ Kel screwed up her face to mek it clear: she couldn’t gi a fuck about Ando, not since he called her Fanny Flaps at break today. She wa behind sports hall blagging three fags off Cleggy, who buys them himsen because he’s fourteen and looks old enough and then sells them single to year sevens, 20p a piece. Ando wa there going on to Cleggy about how many lasses he’s gerrin off wi tonight. Kel dint care if he snogged hundred lasses. ‘He’s a reyt minger, anyway.’

‘As if he is. He’s well fit.’ Shaz refolded her arms. ‘Hardest lad in year nine, an’ all.’

Kel proper needed a piss now. She pressed down ont V-shaped scratch till it stung.

‘Sup wi thee,’ Rach asked, when Kel started bobbing more violently.

‘Nowt, I just need loo.’ Kel tried to tame her legs’ wild dance, but couldn’t keep them still. In her groin, a fat sackful of liquid pressed against her bladder’s taut skin. It felt like summat wi sharp feet wa trying to crawl out. She focused on sucking her belly flat, but that just med it worse.

‘Piss ovver thier.’ Shaz’s thumb indicated slim alley between Karisma and Colonnades. Ont way here, they’d sin two older lasses squatting down there, bums pressed against brick wall. But Kel could never get hang of pulling her knickers out way, and she’d sin at least five older blokes go down there since they’d been waiting. She dint like thought of them stood around wi their willies out while she squatted, holding her knickers out way of her stream.

‘Can’t be arsed,’ said Kel. ‘Don’t really need it anyway.’ She shrugged, shoulders jabbing up to meet her earlobes, where two pierced holes were still healing, green and sore around two heart-shaped studs. Rach had got hers done when she wa seven, Shaz when she warra babby, but Kel weren’t allowed until last week when she finally wore Mam down wi a tale about how she were gerrin laughed at because not having your ears pierced meant you’re frigid.

Longer they waited, less Kel could feel her legs, numbed by wind nipping at her flared skirt, which wa cut tut thigh and covered in turquoise sequins. Kel gorrit special last week from MK One, where Shaz reckoned she went thieving ont weekend, but Kel knew she wa chatting shit because Shaz never ate – she wa saving up her dinner money for Adidas Poppers. That’s why you could count her ribs through her back. Today at break, Ando sez to Cleggy that Shaz would be a reyt shag, if she had any tits.

‘Anyway, if I do see him, I’ll bang him out,’ Kel said.

‘What you on wi?’ Shaz asked.

‘Ando.’

Shaz gev Rach a look, and they started chanting again. ‘Kel fo-or An-do, Kel fo –’

‘No, listen, reyt: he’s saying shit behind Shaz’s back. He wants banging out.’

When he wa done laughing about Shaz’s tits, Ando had reached out and hooked an index ovvert neck of Kel’s cotton white tank top, triangle of it peeking above her school shirt, which wa buttoned low. Just like everycunt at Ridgey knew you couldn’t wear your bag on two shoulders, every Ridgey lass knew you had to button your school shirt low, even though it meant gerrin after school detention if Miss Simpson saw. Ando’s finger pulled down an inch ont cotton neck, and he’d squinted at Kel’s chest as if he wa looking through microscope in Biology. ‘Thissun waint be gerrin in Karisma wi these fried eggs, either,’ he’d said, which med Cleggy laugh so hard a bubble of snot bloomed out his nostril. Kel’s cheeks had flashed hot at his words, but skin on her chest had crackled and sparked round his finger, like he wa med of lad flesh and power lines. Spark shot all way down to her fanny. Thought of it now med her feel sick.

‘Kel fo-or An-do, Kel fo-or An-do.’

Creature in Kel’s bladder flexed its claws.

‘I fancy a Maccy D’s,’ she said, nodding at one ovvert road.

Shaz stopped chanting, narrowed her eyes. ‘You ate yer tea before you cem out.’

‘So?’ Kel pressed her knees together. Ankles splayed, her legs med a big upside down Y.

‘You’ve gorrer come in wi us, though.’ Rach’s face fell serious.

They’d practiced it ont bus into town: to mek sure Kel gorrin, they’d go past bouncer together, talking reyt loud about periods, so he wouldn’t even bother asking Kel her date of birth. She’d just have to hold it till they got through.

It started snowing, thinly, more like frozen rain. They were shielded by Karisma’s awning, but older lasses going past on their way to proper club nights leaned forward, bracing themsens, hands cupped above their forreads to save fringe they’d blow-dryed and gelled into a stiff semi-circle. Flakes cem at them ont wind and their bodies crumpled in like empty cans of pop.

That wa one good thing about cold: you could cross your arms and squeeze your tits up into a reyt cleavage, but nobody could call you a slag because you were just freezing. Every lass int queue were stood int sem pose, shoulders hunched ovver their folded arms, all dressed like Kel in boob tubes and platform heels. Like most of them, Kel had a tiny handbag dangling off one wrist. Her toes tapped against each other in a regular rhythm, slowly building speed until they were going rapid as happy hardcore tunes that townie lads blasted from souped-up Fiat Unos.

Still, a single drop of moisture trickled down her inner thigh.

‘Back in a sec.’

She dashed across road to Maccy D’s, tiny handbag clutched to chest. Her heels were heavy ont sole and half a size too big, held on by a strip of patent leather-look plastic. Mam wouldn’t let her buy any – reckoned they’d mek her look a reyt slapper – so she had to borrow some off Shaz’s big sister Louise. Clinging to them wi scrunched toes, she sprinted past early evening pissheads on high stools int window of Maccy D’s, soaking up their day sesh wi their squished Filets-O-Fish. Inside, and past pink milkshake puddle, past sad family squeezed into a booth, upstairs, and past plastic decal of Ronald and friends someone had drawn bucked teeth on, Kel found a solitary loo, reyt at back and down a corridor that smelled of hospitals and Dettol. She pushed door open wi her shoulder and fell into a room where walls were clammy and scrawled on, chemical smell cem laced wi a sweaty aftertaste, and toilet bowl wa blocked by a papier-mâché sculpture of loo roll and shite.

Kel couldn’t stop still long enough to pull her knickers down wi’out letting more wee escape, wi’out everything gushing out. Her underwear dampened and her abdomen burned while she hopped, crashed intut hand dryer and sink, willing her knickers to mek friends wi her knees. After a load of quick finger jerks ont elastic top, she managed to shimmy them halfway down her thighs. Her arse slammed ontut loo seat just before she let go, hissing an angry stream at shite sculpture below. The relief felt like Mam’s cool hands against her forread last summer when Kel’s skin blazed wi flu and Mam called in sick tut call centre so she could stay home wi her.

Kel’s tiny silver-grey bag dangled between two loose fingers. It wa first thing she bought from Claire’s Accessories after she started her paper round and now Rach had sem one. Kel kicked her legs straight out, like she used to ont park swings. Around her ankles clung a wet pair of white knickers wi a wavy blue trim that she’d worn since first year of primary school.

She dint piss hersen. Knickers dint count – it’s not like she’d gorrit on her clothes.

There wa no bin, only scrunched up wads of loo roll and used tampon holders piled in a corner beneath largest bit of graffiti: twatty bollocks 9t8, scratched two-foot tall intut wall’s plastic paneling wi a compass or hood of a Bic lighter. Kel couldn’t bring hersen to leave knickers ont heap for everyone to see, like a Guy ont bonfire waiting to be burned. What if someone she knew cem intut toilets next? But she couldn’t carry them around wi her. And she couldn’t go home wi’out proving Ando wrong.

Round back ut sports hall, praying her cheeks dint look as hot as they felt, Kel had pushed Ando’s finger away and said, ‘What you on wi? I go Karisma every week, me.’

Cleggy had laughed harder. ‘Nappy Night’s once a month you daft bitch.’ His laugh went ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh like sheep that took off running when they saw school bus going past, double decker inching every morning between stone walls down back lane.

‘Tenner sez you waint get past bouncer tonight.’ Ando held his hand out for her to shek.

Kel dint have a tenner. She had one pound fifty and that were for bus fare and a bag of crisps, but she knew she couldn’t say that because it’d sound like copping out.

Before she could say owt, Ando leaned in so close she could see fat ginger mole hiding behind his left ear. Her nose stung from spicy cloud of Lynx that older lads at Ridgey sprayed reyt on their school jumpers instead of under their arms. He pressed his hand against front of her skirt, fingers finding then cupping under her fanny cleft, sending every inch of her rigid.

He scowled down at her. ‘If you do gerrin, I might even gi you a good fingerfucking.’

Kel had shoved Ando’s shoulders wi both hands, pulse raging. ‘Gerroff me.’

Ando let himsen stumble back. He smiled. ‘Si thi tonight, then, Fanny Flaps.’

It wasn’t till later, brushing her hair in her bedroom mirror, gerrin ready to meet Shaz and Rach at bus stop, Kel had found red V on her chest where his jagged fingernail had nicked her skin.

Kel fingered V now, sting in her chest tekkin her mind off her wet knickers and her damp arse aching from hard lip ut loo seat pressing into her flesh. She dint know if she wanted Ando to touch her like that again or if thought of it terrified her or if it were both.

She couldn’t lose bet, though. She stretched knickers ovver Louise’s platform heels, stuffed them into her handbag’s slim secret pocket, zipped it shut. As long as wee didn’t soak through bag’s fabric, she’d be reyt.

Kel hobbled fast as she could back down stairs, her feet dragging Louise’s shoes back past sad family, past pissheads and their soggy sandwiches, back through snow, ovvert road to Karisma. Wi each step, new air rushed between Kel’s legs, cold like a slap, wind threatening to slip an icy finger below her skirt’s flapping hem and lift it up.

Rach and Shaz were almost at front, three away from bouncer and his greasy scalp, shiny under Karisma’s neon sign. Kel dipped back in wi them.

‘Where’s Happy Meal, then?’ Shaz asked. ‘Like fuck you’ve already scoffed it.’

‘Oi!’ A group of lads further down started on. ‘Fuck’s that about?’ they shouted at Kel. One of them wa tall and lanky like Ando. They threw their shoulders at kids in front of them and everyone else tripped forward, bodies crushing together. Boy nearest Kel fell hard onto her back, pushed her sideways away from queue, knocking breath out of her. She tottered on her toes, fighting to stay upright.

‘Fuck you doing, you silly slag?’ Lads kept on, and Kel couldn’t say owt, winded, oxygen shocked from her lungs by force ut boy’s weight on her spine. Karisma’s awning shadowed lads’ faces, and she couldn’t tell whether tall un wa him or not.

Bouncer let in three more and now Shaz and Rach were reyt at front.

‘Come on, then.’ Shaz motioned to Kel wi a sharp hand.

Tall lad moved forward wi queue, stepped under neon sign, and his face lit up. It wasn’t Ando.

A rush of air, and Kel found her voice. ‘I were here already.’ She pointed at Shaz and Rach. ‘These lot saved mi place.’

‘Whatever, slag.’

‘Hows about get t’fuck, you little wankstain.’

Pride thrilled through Kel’s chest when lads piped down. They grumbled to themsens, slagging her off too soft for her to hear, but they dint say owt else to her face. Gaps between bodies re-opened, queue stretching out again like a Slinky uncoiled. Kel wriggled in wi Shaz and Rach, just in time for their turn to go past bouncer and through club’s heavy double doors.

Three of them faced him together, and Kel launched intut bit they’d practiced ont bus. ‘Got proper bad PMS, me. Aching reyt down to mi knees.’

Before Shaz and Rach had a chance to do their bits, bouncer waved Shaz through. She strode in. Rach followed. Eyes on Rach’s ponytail, Kel stepped forward and walked smack intut bloke’s upheld palm. She bounced off it like a test dummy off crash barrier in a car safety advert.

‘Fourth of April 1986,’ Kel said, collecting hersen.

‘Wait.’

‘But I’m wi them.’ Her shoulders tilted at doors that had swallowed her mates.

‘Wait, or yer don’t gerrin.’

Bouncer’s arm barred her way. Up close, his face wa just as mardy as it had been further off. Looked like he’d never bothered learning how to smile.

Wind grabbed her skirt, reminded Kel that one cheeky gust could expose her tut whole queue. She gathered loose hem in her hand to keep it tight to her legs.

Kel had never been a blagger. Even though Rach looked oldest, Shaz always did their blagging. Like other month when they snuck intut cinema to see Titanic. Shaz had ordered their tickets and bloke dint even ask their ages because Shaz had med sure they were all wearing sparkly eyeshadow and gold hoop earrings – clip ons for Kel. Shaz’d leaned ovver bloke’s counter wi her boobs pushed up, smiled and held her eyelids low.

Kel approached bouncer again. She sucked in her tummy and looked him reyt int eyes.

‘Ay up, what’s your name?’ she said. She stroked his forearm up to his elbow, ruffling his jacket’s black fleece.

He stared at Maccy D’s, body still and solid as a concrete bollard.

‘Touch me again and you’re barred.’

Blinking fierce against sting in her eyes she stepped back, crossed her arms ovver her chest, fingers scurrying into armpits. She wa desperate to know if lads behind had heard, determined not to turn around and check. Wind bit at her, teased until she held her skirt in place wi both hands, shivering up and down on her heels to count seconds and minutes until warm inside.

Bouncer’s hand med a come here motion and she stepped forward again, straight back intut iron palm.

‘Bag.’

Her pulse thudded in her ears, blood crawling up her throat to her cheeks. ‘What about mi mates? You dint check theirs.’

Bouncer’s face dint move.

‘Mi mate Rachael’s even got sem bag.’

‘I check yer bag, or you gerrout queue.’

She looked at queue. There was still nobody she knew there, and now she couldn’t remember which end of town bus left from – North Station or South. Both sat poorly lit beneath multi-storey car parks, barren between loading bays but for smashed glass and trails of piss. Shaz sez only skagheads hung about there at night. Kel had never been there alone even int day.

She slid tiny silver-grey pouch ovver her wrist, opened bigger ut bag’s two compartments and held it out, praying he wouldn’t notice skinny secret pocket still zipped up tight. Bouncer poked a finger around, disturbed her Frosty Melon lipgloss tube, her bus pass, tampon she kept on her just in case it happened, and three loose fags. Satisfied, he closed zip.

When he turned tut bag’s other side, Kel’s heart flooded, bashed itssen against her ribs.

Back went slender zip in his massive hand, and in went his finger.

Bouncer cringed, nose wrinkling as if he’d just unearthed loo roll sculpture int toilets at Maccy D’s. His disgust hit Kel like a fist – first a sock to her belly, then a dead weight spreading through her, draining her limbs. He pulled his finger out, hooking crotch of Kel’s wet knickers.

Inside her a cave opened, as though bouncer’s finger were crooked around her guts, pulling them out. Lads behind went ‘FuuuckinHELL’ and their laughs gnashed at her face. She couldn’t turn and look for Ando, see if he wa there, laughing.

Bouncer’s grin cracked his cheeks open, his ham sandwich slices parting to reveal a gold front tooth in an overcrowded mouth. He un-crooked his finger and Kel’s knickers slid slowly off. They were creased like tissue paper she used at Sunday School to mek collage ut Archangel Gabriel. Pavement wa muddy wi half-melted snowflakes and shit off everyone’s shoes.

‘Gerrin, then,’ he said. Done wi her, he motioned tut lads behind.

One hand on her skirt, Kel bent at knees and grabbed her knickers, shoved them back int secret pocket. Wee mixed wi mud and rubbed gritty wet against bag’s fabric lining. She hurried through club doors before they swung shut, cutting off wind and leaving her in a dark foyer. UV strip lights blinked ovverhead, and a set of stairs led up. She could mek out a dud dud bass line vibrating faintly above her.

She couldn’t hear lads laughing no more but tears brimmed at sound of it in her brain. She wanted to go upstairs and find Rach and smoke their fags, but her bag wouldn’t close reyt. She pulled at zip wi trembling fingers but her knickers were caught in its teeth, slash of blue trim poking out.

‘Ay up, Fanny Flaps.’

Kel sucked her stomach in and looked up. ‘Alreyt, Ando.’ He cem down stairs toward her, and flesh on her arms tightened wi goosepimples. He hadn’t been int queue laughing. He hadn’t sin what happened outside. She shoved both palms ovver her bag, covering place where pocket gaped open.

‘Fried eggs med it in, then,’ he said, closing his hand around Kel’s left tit, squeezing like Kel reckoned you’d squeeze an old-fashioned car horn. She couldn’t push him off because her hands were glued tut bag, concealing her knickers. She dint know what would happen if he grabbed her fanny again, if this time his fingers slipped beneath skirt hem, found nowt but her skin. Her heart banged around inside her like Mam’s new jack russell, slamming into kitchen cabinets whenever doorbell went.

‘I wunt bother,’ Ando said, nodding ovver his shoulder at stairs. ‘It’s shite tonight. Nowt but babbies.’

Ceiling’s UV strips seemed to light their faces from below, casting hot white under their chins. He thrust a scratchy summat down into her boob tube and brushed past her back ontut street. Sweep of frozen air before door banged shut behind him. Kel shivered int half-dark and looked down. Tucked into her top, a scrunched up ten pound note. Below that, her knickers winked between her fingers a fluorescent glow. She brought thumb to chest, found V, pressed down. Her left nipple burned where his fingers had pinched and she wondered if tomorrow she’d find a starfish-shaped bruise.

 

Photograph © Martin Deutsch

The post Knickers appeared first on Granta.

By now we’ve all heard about author platform, even if we’re not entirely sure how to build or maintain one.

But in my everyday work with authors, I’ve noticed many writers aren’t sure how exactly to get started. What should you focus on when you’re being pointed in 20 different directions, and all roads are potentially huge time sucks?

How to start building your author platform

As I explain in this post, author platform includes these components: expertise, contacts, social media, previous media, previous books, personality, existing readership and ability to execute. That breakdown can function as a roadmap for anyone who’s trying to figure out how to get started, especially if you feel like you’re starting at zero.

Ready to build your author platform? Here’s how to start from scratch.

1. Expertise: Write an “I am fabulous” statement

The goal with this step is to pump yourself up. In what specific and particular ways are you awesome? Why are you the person to write your book? Why is it the case that no one but you could write your book? What unique experience do you bring to the table?

Even if your answer is simply that you lived the life you lived — and maybe it was a hard one —  you’re awesome for having survived it. If you write fiction, your book likely involves themes or situations you know a lot about, which makes you an expert.

Let your statement be free-flowing, but work hard to pat yourself on the back. While many of us tend to undervalue our abilities, the first step toward being an expert is believing you can be an expert.

You may have to fake it till you make it, and your “I am fabulous” statement can give you the motivation and validation you need to get there.

2. Contacts: Put together a “big mouth list”

Everyone you know is a contact. The more people you know, the more influence you have, especially if you know people in high places.

So what if those influencers are a couple degrees of separation from you? People are surprising in how they choose to support fledgling authors. I’ve witnessed seriously established authors supporting new writers just because it feels good, and they remember what it’s like to be in your position.

In addition to the list of people you’re connected to, create a list of people who might blurb you, from realistic to pie in the sky. Who would be your ideal reader? Who do you dream might one day recommend your book?

3. Social media: Pick just two social channels

That’s right: only two. Set up a profile on each and post once a day.

For most writers, I recommend choosing Facebook and Twitter, but if you’re into other channels or options, give them a shot. If you’re writing something that lends itself to images, join Pinterest. If your work lends itself to video, do YouTube. Experiment to find a social media channel that works for you and your writing.

The key to social media is posting regularly and engaging people. You want shares, because shares lead to more follows. Rather than spreading yourself thin across multiple platforms, focus consistently on the two platforms that provide the most value to you and your work.

It takes forever (seriously) to build up a following on social media, so don’t be discouraged. Celebrate a few likes a week. Manage your expectations. Keep going. Building an author platform is a marathon, not a sprint.

4. Previous media and books: Publish an ebook

If you’re starting at zero, you may not have any previously published books or media, like guest posts or podcast interviews. That’s okay.

If you’re working on a book project that you know is going to take some time to complete — a novel or a memoir that’s already been in progress for a few years, for instance — then write a shorter ebook!

It’s surprisingly easy to self-publish an ebook. You want it to be high quality, with great content, a compelling cover and a well-designed interior. Using Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, iBooks, or e-junkie you can promote and sell your ebook from your website. While marketing your ebook is a topic for another post, figuring out how to write an ebook is a fairly simple process. And voila, you have a book to propel future books.

Media opportunities will come, but any interview you do, blog post you write or opportunity to speak in front of people you come across qualifies as media. Don’t be afraid to showcase these successes on your website and social media channels.

It takes a major shift in consciousness to start self-promoting, but I’ve found the key is in the balance. It’s cool to self-promote if you’re giving your readership fantastic, smart and interesting content — providing value. And it will get more comfortable with practice, I promise.

5. Personality: Figure out your persona

Jeff VanderMeer’s Booklife helped me understand the value of figuring out who you are online.

Some people put it all out there and are wholly themselves online, while others choose to create a persona different from who they are in real life or only show a certain side of themselves. You get to decide, and you’re not wrong or weird or bad if you want to retain a little privacy.

However, being private or an introvert does not mean you should not have a website, or that you can get away with pooh-poohing the importance of an author platform.

It just means you get to set boundaries. Instead of holding technology in contempt, learn to work with what you might not like, and to figure out how to make it work for you.

6. Existing readership: Create an email sign-up form on your website

What? You don’t have a website yet? OK, the first step is to set up your new site. Here’s a guide on how to start a blog.

While you’re at it, create a sign-up form that connects to an email management system; here are a few of our favorite email newsletter platforms to choose from. Put it on your homepage to capture email addresses — and take a deep breath.

Authors often tell me that people they know already have too much email. Get over it. Seriously. Your job is to collect emails, and to send out worthwhile content. It may take a long time to build up your email list, and to figure out exactly what your message is, but you need to practice having a following.

It doesn’t matter if you launch your email list with 20 people on it. That’s exactly what I did, and four years later I’m publishing for 5,000 subscribers who want to hear from me. After all, if they don’t, they can opt out.

But don’t worry about the numbers for now. Just take the first step and set up the form.

7. Ability to execute: Stick to a schedule

The ability to execute, like personality, is sort of a “soft” aspect of author platform, but it matters. It’s about follow-through and the ability to stick to a commitment to create content. It’s about consistency, and showing up even if it seems like no one is listening.

Building an author platform is grueling work, but it’s truly rewarding when you see the occasional spikes in engagement or new followers, or the payoff in the form of positive feedback or sales.

This payoff can only happen if you execute a plan and stick to it.

I know it’s a long haul. I’m out there myself, working on my platform every day, sometimes wondering why I am putting so much effort toward all this personal branding. But if you want to publish, and if you want readers, you have to find a voice, write content, connect with your readers and put yourself out there.

Your hard work will pay off; it just takes some time. Give it time and figure out a schedule that works for you. I recommend blogging once a month and posting on social media once a day, to start. You might increase from there, but again, you can take it little by little and adjust your plan as you figure it out.

The best way to build an author platform is simple: start

Just like you don’t run a marathon without training for weeks or months, you don’t start your author platform full force. Building your platform takes discipline and hard work, but if it weren’t worth it, no one would be doing it.

The key is to find genuine value in your endeavors. Keep going, even when it feels like no one is listening. Eventually people will start to listen, and eventually you will get a comment to a post that makes you realize you’re making a difference, reach a milestone with your contacts that surprises you, or connect with a high-profile writer who supports you just because.

Have faith. Work hard. Don’t dismiss these ideas just because they feel like too much effort, or because starting from zero seems daunting. Everyone started from zero, even your literary heroes. And it’s only with hindsight and effort that anyone has the wisdom to promise that it’s worth it.

I promise, it is. Come on in and test the waters. Wade in slowly. You’ll find your way.

What was the first thing you did to build your author platform? If you’re just starting out, what’s your biggest obstacle?

This is an updated version of a story that was previously published. We update our posts as often as possible to ensure they’re useful for our readers.

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The post Build Your Author Platform: 7 Manageable Ways to Start From Scratch appeared first on The Write Life.

In this March 2020 interview, The Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist weighs in on altering the course of a novel to unfold plot elements more harmoniously and facing rejection from his publisher.

Andrew Sean Greer, winner of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for his novel Less, gave a keynote address at the 2019 Writer’s Digest Novel Writing Conference wearing a bright red suit and angel wings, happily joining in on our Halloween costume party for the evening. What Greer may or may not have realized was that as he spoke about revising that novel and discovering in it symbols like flight and birds, the wings of his own costume silently underscored his point.

A graduate of the MFA program at the University of Montana and author of five novels and a collection of short stories, Greer is deeply interested in the craft of writing and explained his willingness to speak at the conference, “Usually I don’t talk to a crowd of writers, and it’s boring for readers to hear about our problems. They don’t want to know about that and they’re not interested in any technical kind of question. And all writers want to talk about or hear about or [ask is], ‘how did you do it?’”

It’s a question echoed in the opening pages of Less as the title character prepares to interview an author: “What does one ever ask an author except: ‘How?’ And the answer, as Arthur Less well knows, is obvious: ‘Beats me!’”

Just as his enthusiasm for speaking to other writers was evident in his keynote, Greer was generous with his time and went beyond “Beats me!” in speaking to the magazine as he considered the challenges of his unique revision process, facing rejection, and the benefit of writing retreats. But we began with the big question: choosing what to write about.

Some novelists stick with a common theme among their books, but you tackle varying topics. How do you approach choosing a topic or theme out of all of the possibilities there are?

I think my editors would disagree with you, or my agent would say I write the same book over and over, but in completely different circumstances. And I would agree with that somehow. If I think I’m going to write a time travel novel, which I did two books ago, it’s not going to be about killing Hitler or something. I’m not as interested in history or politics as it turns out; it’s going to be about love over the passage of time. Every one of them seems to be about that. Even if I think I’m striking out somewhere else, it always comes down to that.

So, picking a subject, I have no idea. Sometimes I get it. Usually, what I know is, I know the setting that interests me. Never does a whole novel occur to me all at once. And usually the novel I start off writing, I end up with something completely different, almost all the time.

Do you like to be surprised in that way when you’re writing?

No! [Laughs] I do not like it! I have friends who, they’re like, “I have a great idea for a novel,” and they do their research and just write it from beginning to end. Then they rewrite it and it’s frustrating. It doesn’t come out perfectly, but it sure comes out the way they thought it was going to. And mine is, I sit down and write 200 pages and then have a nervous breakdown and realize the novel’s about something else and I start over. I find that a very frustrating experience, but I’ve done it so many times that I think it’s a process.

I read that sometimes when you get feedback from an agent or an editor about a work-in-progress, you take what they identify as the piece that’s not working and you refit the novel so that piece does fit. Is that how you approach revising in general, and would you recommend that to others?

It’s very hard. I have learned how to be good at this. It’s mostly what I talk about in workshop and it’s what a beginning writer has a hard time doing—seeing their own book—which is why you go to workshop and get feedback. At a certain point, you are the one who has to make the big decisions.

My friend, Daniel Handler, has the best advice and my advice comes out of his. He says the editor is the patient and you are the doctor. The editor says, “My arm is hurting.” Then they say, “I think it’s arm cancer.” And then you’re the doctor, you say, “There’s no such thing as arm cancer, but it is useful to know your arm is hurting. I think I know what the problem is.” Because they’re not in the book. It’s not in their head. You have to ignore their advice about literally what to do if it’s something big. You have to understand what they’re saying isn’t working.

Usually, we’ll be in a workshop and someone will say, “I love this story about a marriage falling apart, but you have to get rid of the mermaid at the end.” And I think it through, but usually I end up saying, “The mermaid is the special thing.” You have to change the rest of the story so that when the mermaid appears, it feels magical and important and the purpose of the story. So the rest of the story has to change because no one wants just the story of the marriage falling apart. What’s the point of that? But a mermaid in it is something! And that is hard to perceive and follow through on.

Do your editors or agents trust you enough at this point when this happens that they know you can pull it off, or do they get nervous when you turn something new in?

I’m sure they get nervous, but in my last book, Less, my editor, bless her, wanted me to change the ending because she said, “We don’t want some kind of trick that will throw people off. We’ve enjoyed the whole book. So it should just end.” I said, “I hear what you’re saying. I’m going to make it work. You’re going to see.” And she said, “I can’t wait,” knowing that if it really didn’t work, I could easily switch it back. But I thought, I know the ending is what I want. So I changed the rest of the book. It took a lot and [they’re] subtle things. It’s changing the way the story is told so that it lands naturally and I have written enough books and finished them that the editors trust me.

But I think even one of my very first editors, her sign as a good editor was that she refused to give me a line to replace another line or an idea. She would not do it. And I was begging. I was like, “So what should I say instead?” She’s like, “You have to do that.” She would not do it for me. Although she was longing to, she understood that it could not be her job. If she wanted to write a book, she should write her own but she had to get me to figure it out. Because I would come up with a better solution because I’m in the book. So that showed her talent, really. I was wanting her to write it for me.

While we’re talking about Less, in the first chapter poor Arthur faces some pretty harsh rejection from his agent about a novel he’s working on. Have you faced your own version of harsh rejection?

Over and over. I’ve had novel projects outright rejected. I’ve changed publishers because my own publisher wasn’t interested in the new book. I lost my British publisher with the book Less because they didn’t want it. No one wanted that book! [Laughs] I was struck by lightning, but my German publisher loved it. But other than that, there was no one else. Obviously my U.S. publisher was behind it. Little, Brown was keen, but it was devastating when my British publisher dropped me after four books. We sent it around to a dozen other British publishers. No one would take it. Which felt like I was going crazy.

How did you overcome that kind of rejection?

I don’t have a thick skin, but I have been in the publishing industry to know that it is very personal in a good and bad way. People, they’re judging it on their reading a few manuscripts that day and they’re in a bad mood, or they just lost their assistant or everything’s being reshuffled. In these businesses things are chaos. To get to a place where they actually sit and get something, understand it, and understand it in an early draft—that’s what’s hard. We think it’s in its best form but it’s not yet. They have to look and see the possibility of it. That takes a certain state of mind. Most of the time they’re not in that state of mind. They go for easy things. But once in a while, everyone turns something down and [then] someone loves it and understands it, and you just need that one person.

With The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells and The Confessions of Max Tivoli, your characters break the laws of time and physics by time traveling and aging backward. How did you create your rules for how that would work for them, what they could and could not do?

That does not come naturally to me. There are people who work in the fantasy and sci-fi genre who are more skilled at this. I love reading those genres and see how it looks so easy for people.

Maybe Max Tivoli was simpler because it seemed clear to me how it would go. The only decision I had to make was whether his mind aged backward or not with his body. It seems obvious now that it’s no fun if it does, but Benjamin Button, his mind sort of ages backward.

With The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells, it drove me crazy! She drove me so crazy that I had a giant corkboard and pins and string and index cards to chart every timeline and where she was and what characters were there and what happened. I bit off more than I could chew and it took about a year longer than normal because that part was so hard.

You mentioned that you like to read sci-fi and fantasy, and I read that when you were writing Less, there were certain books you read to stimulate your mind as you were writing. What are you reading now?

I read the same book over and over and over because I’m trying to figure out how they did it.

I’m not sure I hit on the perfect books for this [next] book, but I’ve also been on a camping trip for three weeks, a research trip. So I limited the books I brought with me, but I’ve been reading Gerald Durrell’s memoirs. He’s the brother of Lawrence Durrell, who wrote The Alexandria Quartet. He writes kind of jokey naturalist novels about the beginning of the 20 century and mostly because there’s something charming and there’s something about it that I like—like the voice and his level of detail. I know that’s a kooky one, but that’s me. I love to read odd books.

I love getting unexpected answers to that question.

What I used to do when I was teaching is, I would take my students to a used bookstore and I’d give them each $5. I would say, “Pick a book you’ve never heard of, by an author you’ve never heard of, just based on how it feels and how it looks when you open it. I want you to learn how to discover a book and give it a chance.” Because otherwise everyone’s just reading the latest bestsellers or prize winners. Though you should read all the prize winners. [Laughs.]

You’re just going to sound like everyone else and you need to pick the books that really—I think a voice means a cumulation of all the books that you love.

This is just the habit of being a broke young writer—reading from used bookstores—and that’s still what I do. I love a new bookstore, but a used bookstore? It’s more exciting ’cause there’s all these hidden treasures. It’s fun to have something that nobody else knows about.

It is. I like what you said about the voice of the writer being a cumulation of all of the books that they’ve loved.

Otherwise there’s too much pressure on people to somehow emit some psychic force and that’s not fair. Like any other field, we should feel free to be influenced by everything and imitate the things we love. ’Cause you’re going to do it anyway.

I became a writer, and a lot of people do, because I was such a reader that I wanted to be part of it. Writing is like fan fiction. It’s the same thing that, I want it to go on more, but they didn’t make more! So I’m going to make the next one.

You mentioned being a poor young writer and I read that you were a food and travel writer to make ends meet. Could you talk about that kind of work? Did you like doing it? Do you miss doing it? Do you still do it on occasion?

I loved doing it. I’m a very shy person and it was not natural for me to pitch myself, throw myself head long at magazine editors. But I did it because I needed the money.

I remember in New York I had my friend introduce me to the editor of the magazine where she worked, a travel magazine, and I wore a really bright outfit ’cause I knew I wouldn’t get to talk to him. He would just shake my hand and go away. But then at the next meeting when they said, “Who should we get to do this new project?” And my friend would say, “How about my friend Andy?” And he’s like, “Who?” And they would say, “You know, the guy in the yellow sweater.” “OK. Right.” Maybe it was that stupid.

But I loved doing it because I love to travel. I didn’t mind the solitude. And it turns out I was good at it, and the food writing, which I don’t get to do much of at all anymore. But I am still doing a trip—it looks like I’m doing a trip to Japan in a month.

You spent a lot of time at the Santa Maddalena Retreat for Writers. Talk about the role writing retreats have played in your writing and what other writers ought to consider when they’re thinking about doing something like that.

They should do it, first of all. I have friends and it doesn’t work for them. They work perfectly fine at home or in a café. But for me, these places are always where I get the amount of work done that I have had a breakthrough in the book. So I depend on them.

And there’s so many. If you look at ResArtis.org, there [are] writer’s retreats around the world and some you have to pay. I’ve certainly paid for them. Then some are kooky and irritating and have a lot of character.

My advice: There’s a lot in the U.S. There [are] often ones that are unexpected, even in your own town [where] there’s a few apartments somewhere.

If you can’t afford [a retreat], I used to, when my friends would go out of town, I would stay in their apartment for four days and that would be my writer’s retreat.

You’ve mentioned working on your next book and I read that it will have humor elements like Less did, but that it might also include some right-wing American political characters. How do you approach that topic in that style in today’s political climate?

I don’t know yet. I haven’t gotten to that part. I’m terrified about that because it’s not funny. I’m struggling with it. I have only written one humorous book. My go-to with that one was to make the joke on Arthur, always, and his misunderstandings. I may try to go that route in some way again.

Where I’ve been the last couple weeks—I rented a camper to go through the Deep South for three days and go to small towns because I want to talk to people and not about politics, but get a sense of a part of the country that I have a lot of judgments about and don’t know anything about—and back to where my family’s from. It’s made me do a lot of thinking about myself, and it makes me think the novel will go that way because it’s more interesting to me. I feel like a ridiculous right-wing character is something that I already have seen a million times. I’m trained not to write any clichés, anything I’ve seen before. So we’ll see. I don’t have a good answer.

How did you find your agent and what did that process look like for you?

I’ve had two agents and my first agent, when I was a young little thing, he was a young agent and had taken on as one of his clients my best friend, so my best friend recommended me. He read my work and took me on too, and I was just, I don’t know, his third client or something. So that was sort of luck and it’s why I’ve always recommended to people that it’s the young new agents who are looking—they have to amass material, right? They have to get a stable of writers. And they’re great because they’re full of energy and they’re dying to make a mark just as we are.

And how do you find those? I just think you talk to everyone you know. You talk to your writer friends who have agents. I think the one thing you don’t do, you don’t go up to your favorite writer and say, “Could you send my book to your agent?” It’s tempting to do but it doesn’t make sense. And if you don’t know anybody in the world, [agents] do read the cold piles, you know?

Especially with the new ones.

Their assistant reads it and their assistant will become an agent one day, too. So again, it’s so personal and you just need one person that loves it.

And you don’t have to send them your first page. If you send them your best pages, you don’t overwhelm them. You don’t send them a 10-page description of the book. You just try to make it really easy to read and enjoy, and they’ll contact you.

But like most things, there is an element of luck and networking in it. But, how did I do that? Back then, there were more places where you could publish—and agents read literary magazines because they’re looking for someone. So you could just have been published in these places and now there’s not as much of that, but there also wasn’t Google.

Do you have any other words of wisdom for our readers?

I think about writing a novel: The thing I’m always reminding myself is that the important thing is the novel and not your favorite scenes or characters, and it’s such a different way of looking at something than a short story. You are looking for a whole experience that comes together and feels like it has a pattern. You have to sacrifice a lot of things in order for the book to be great. I know that sounds abstract. It does when I tell it to myself, but, that’s the big lesson I learned. WD

Slavery has been much in the news and on social media lately, so we thought we’d do something that’s long overdue here at Interesting Literature: share some of the most powerful, damning, and emotionally moving poems about slavery and the plight of African slaves over the centuries, from poets writing […]

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