Platform building?? Yeah, that ...

When we began writing our Route 66 book, we were told early on that book publishing had changed in recent decades and we now had to ‘build our platform’ and have a following before any publisher would take us seriously.  Really??  (yeah, that was our reaction)  Sort of a Catch-22:  it used to be that the marketing effort following publication of your book was supposed to drum up publicity to gain you a following, so that people would buy your book.  Now, apparently, book publishers are a lot fussier and expect you to gain a following before you’ve finished writing the book, let alone found a publisher – in fact, you have to have that platform and following before most publishers will consider doing business with you.  And that’s assuming they like your book idea and manuscript in the first place.