Debuts For This Week

Who is actress Courtney Thorne-Smith? I'm not one to watch the afternoon soap operas, and as for evening television, well, if there's something in the line of sports, that's where my eyes are. She's written a novel, you see, her debut in the publishing world, and wouldn't you know but the book is about life in LA with all its absurdities. And of course there's the requisite delving into the dark underbelly of the entertainment world. At any rate, she's literate enough to pen a novel and see it published. Can she write? Doesn't much matter, not with her platform. Actress dishes the dirt on Hollywood...that's all anyone needs to know.

Margaret Lowrie Robertson used to work for CNN. Now she's an author, with a book that tells the story of a foreign correspondent in Beirut, circa 1983, and need I go on with the plot? Foreign correspondent writes about a foreign correspondent, and we're back at the platform issue. On the plus side, her contacts at CNN could get her some air time to plug the book, and the merits of her writing fade away into insignificance.

There's a novel coming soon, penned by Jonathan Friesen. Is this the same man who turns up on a Google search as a Bible college student, planning to do good deeds in South America? Can he be the real deal, an average guy who happened to write a catchy story? The protagonist of the upcoming debut novel suffers from Tourette's syndrome. I do hope that neither Mr. Friesen nor his close relations suffer from the disease. It would be disappointing to discover that he's writing from personal experience, as are the previous two debut authors.

Checking the lists of debut authors week after week has proven that you need something beyond a good book to get an agent and get published, with so very few platform-less authors turning up in the listings at Publishers Marketplace.
And yet the literary agents insist that good writing trumps all. A bit of delusion? Or wishful thinking?