Since
I started attending writer’s conferences in 2005, I don’t think I’ve been to a
single one that didn’t include a class on the necessity for writers to build a platform.
What
is a platform?
Michael Hyatt, former CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers and the speaker at this Year’s American Christian Fiction Writers Conference writes, “…platforms are built of:
Contacts, Customers, Prospects, Followers, and Fans. In other words, a platform
is your tribe. People who share your passion and want to hear from like-minded
people.”
Hyatt,
an expert on platform, has written an entire book aptly named, Platform, to
help writers and speakers facilitate successful careers.
He
also says in this article, “You can’t succeed without a platform.”
Many
writers, myself included, feel called by God to do what we do, however, from
the publisher’s end, this is still a business. There are stockholders to report
to, and one by one, we’ve seen publishing houses fold or bought out by larger
corporations due to the difficult economy. Platform is not only important for
business but also vital for getting whatever message we have out there so others
may hear it.
But
honestly, I grow weary of the marketing end of this business. It’s the hardest
thing for me. It’s not that I don’t work hard. I do. I just get tired of what
someone has called, “shameless, self-promotion.” My introverted personality
does not lend itself to it, and when I see other writers with hundreds or
thousands of blog followers and huge fan bases, sometimes, I just want to sit
down. It seems so impossible.
There
are deeper questions this struggle begs: Why did I begin this writing career? Why
would anyone want to read what I write? These questions resonate in my core and
cause me to lie awake sometimes at night.
I
began this writing journey, because one night about fourteen years ago, I
sensed God asking me to move beyond the journals I’d kept since a child and
produce work that others could read.
My
hope is that others will read, because they find God speaks to them through
these words, and they find help and hope for their own life.
I
started this blog due to a specific direction God gave me to “ring out his
word.” That’s why in every post I refer directly or indirectly to a passage of
scripture. Two years and 339 posts later, I’ve tried to be faithful to that
calling.
I’d
been pondering these things to myself when my husband whom I’d not spoken to
about this, says in a sermon, “It’s not the size of your platform that matters,
but the importance of every single life.”
I’ve
mentored many college students over the years, and heard a few say when
considering their future ministries, “I just want to be where I can minister to
the most people.” Oops.
What
if God calls you to a little village in Africa, or a small town in South
Georgia, and then he asks you stay there for ten years ministering to a flock
you can number on your fingers and toe? What if?
As
my husband pointed out, does that mean your life or ministry is less important
than the pastor preaching to thousands?
Every
life is important.
When
I post these musings, I think about the people who read them. I’ve said that if
what I write is significant to just one, it’s worth my time. I may sense an
urgency about the words I post, but then I don’t receive much feedback and doubt surges into my heart. I question if they did matter to even one.
But
then something happens that makes me know God is at work.
I
recently wrote this post about cleaning out the dark attic and how I uncovered treasured
childhood messages from my children up there. I was reminded me of the dark
time when I had cancer, and the Lord spoke so sweetly one night when fear
threatened to engulf me—a treasure in the dark.
I received a message from a reader who’d recently had a biopsy, and he told me
how encouraging my post was to him. I later learned he received the news he had
cancer only an hour after reading my post.
If
ten thousand people had read my blog that day, it wouldn’t have meant more to
me than the knowledge that this one man facing perhaps the most difficult time in
his life found comfort in a few words the Lord helped me string together. You
see, every life is important.
I’m
still going to have to market and work on that platform thing, because it’s
what’s expected if I’m going to have this career to which I believe the Lord is
calling me. But I’ll constantly remind myself that every life is important, and
if God calls me to write for just one, I’ll be as faithful as I can be.
Perhaps
you’ve viewed your ministry as small and insignificant, please take heart and
hope that it matters to God. Stand on the
platform God has given you, small or large, and with everything that's in you, pour yourself out for Him.
And
let me repeat once more. Every. Life. Is. Important.
“But
you are the ones chosen by God, chosen for the high calling of priestly work,
chosen to be a holy people, God’s instruments to do his work and speak out for him
, to tell others of the night-and–day difference he made for you--from nothing
to something, from rejected to accepted” (I Peter 2:9-10 The Message).