Publishers today only want to publish books by authors with a “platform.”

A platform is (1) a visible presence in a market and (2) one or more channels through which you can reach that market.

Editors looked for such things as whether the author had a column, TV or radio show, even an infommercial.

But now, as a potential author you have to build  your platform online too.

In your book proposals, publishers want to know: (a) number of Facebook fans, (b) Twitter followers, (c) LinkedIn connections, (d) sales of prior books, which the can now confirm easily online, and (e) web site statstics especially unique visits per month.

If you ignore social media like I do, you are soon going to find it next to impossible to sell  your book idea to a mainstream publisher.

With everyone self-publishing POD (print on demand) books and Kindle e-books today, maybe that doesn’t much matter to you.

But I’m old school. I like “real” books — books that are made of paper, professionally designed, and published by a traditional publishing house, which still (in my opinion) produce books of quality a full step higher than the average self-published affair.

What’s the easiest marketing task in the world?

It’s putting up a web site that looks pretty and reads well — but doesn’t have to sell anything or generate any other kind of measurable response.

I know, because the most common call I get as a copywriter is this: “We put up a web site and everybody says how great it looks, but we aren’t getting any sales. Help!”

It may be that I am envious of general marketers that don’t have to produce results. If they put up a web site that’s aesthetically pleasing, and that the client praises, they are the hero.

As a direct response copywriter, if I don’t increase the conversion rate of my client’s web site or landing page, I am the goat.

Do you agree with me that creating direct marketing is more difficult and takes more skill than general marketing?

For reasons unknown, a lot of my readers ask a lot of personal questions about me. To help answer a few, I’ve compiled this list, in no particular order, of 17 things I really like:

1. A train whistle blowing in the distance late at night.

2. Cold weather.

3. Rain.

4. Cloudy, gray skies.

5. The ocean.

6. Lakes.

7. Rivers.

8. Books.

9. Reading The New York Review of Books.

10. Newspapers.

11. The 2nd movement of Beethoven’s 7th Symphony.

12. Jimmy Smith playing the Hammond B3 organ.

13. The novel A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving. 

14. A kosher hot dog.

15. Pink grapefruit juice.

16. Oranges.

17. My dog Princess.

There’s a bunch of popular gadgets that everybody’s making a fuss about which I don’t own and do not believe I ever will: a Kindle, Nook, iPad, iPod, iPhone, Bluetooth, any other Smart Phone, apps of any kind.

Why not? Just don’t see the need for them, and don’t want to own more stuff. They take time to learn, and every electronic gizmo eventually is going to have problems, another headache I don’t need.

I DO own a GPS because I have no sense of direction. And I own a laptop because I travel and give talks requiring PowerPoint.

My colleagues and friends are trying to convince me that I need an iPad. They demonstrate all it can do. None of it I need. Seems like a toy to me.

They also want me to get a Kindle. I’d rather hold and read a physical book. I have no need to carry my whole library with me when I travel.

My kids love their iPods. Again, I don’t need to carry 900 songs with me.

Do you own these things? Why?

Kindle and Nook already threaten to make paper books obsolete. Now magazines face the same danger.

According to an article in BtoB (3/12/12, p. 4), Penton Media’s  technology media group will stop printing all its magazines. These publications will exist solely as digital editions.

In February Ziff Davis Enterprise took a similar step with its print titles.

I like sitting on the couch or in the backyard reading magazines. Now it looks as if this pleasure may soon vanish.

Stop the world; I want to get off.

Should I consult or otherwise work for you for free?

RS seems to think so. She writes: “I am asking about the landing page on my web site at URL. I have had very low response and have sold very little product.”

Of course, I cannot answer unless I click on the link, go to RS’s web site, and analyze it.

RS expects me to do this for free. Should I be flattered or annoyed? Mostly, I am the latter.

She is asking me to do for her, for free, work that my clients pay for.

Why should I?

This happens all the time, by the way. People ask me almost every day, “Can you take a quick look at my web site?” When I tell them “No, I can’t,” they are offended. 

Never mind that their auto mechanic charges to give their car an inspection. They automatically assume I should work for them for free.

If I looked at and commented on all the web sites people want me to review without compensation, I would have no time to serve my clients, who are the ones that pay my bills.

How is that fair?

Yes, according to my subscriber GB.

“I don’t know anyone in today’s age, other than a very bored stay-at-home, who has the time or patience to read through all those pages of copy, and God forbid, having to sit through those horrendous dragged-out sales videos,” she says. “I’m at the point that if one of those videos comes up, there’s no message or product on earth that’s worth such a waste of time and I delete it on the spot.”

She is particularly critical of Agora Publishing, a company that has pioneered long-copy landing pages and video sales letters. “Agora needs an overhaul,” she says. “It’s no longer working for busy people. Needed: one page, short and focused with impact.”

The problem with GB’s argument is that Agora makes a fortune from those long sales letters and videos, to the tune of around $300 million a year — kind of demolishing GB’s premise that long copy doesn’t work for them.

Your thoughts?

A sign on the shop floor of a manufacturing facility showed a triangle. Each corner was labeled: one was GOOD, another was FAST, the third was CHEAP. The caption under the triangle said PICK ANY TWO.

It makes sense to me. If you are cheap and fast, you probably aren’t very good. If you are good and fast,  you can and should charge a premium fee. If you are cheap and good, you probably don’t allow customers to rush you.

If you are all three — cheap, good, fast — you are under constant pressure and probably not making that much money.

Which are  you — good, fast, or cheap?