What's The Deal With Platforms?

Why does one author get selected for publication and another gets rejected?

It's the platform, of course.

Missy Chase Lapine wrote a cookbook that provided dozens of recipes for mothers to use. It seems that some people are obsessed with getting their children to eat vegetables and Ms. Lapine was offering plenty of hints to hide those nasty food products in things kids like to eat. (Wonder if there's a recipe for colcannon. Tough to get the wee babes to eat cabbage unless its buried in a mound of mashed potatoes swimming in butter.)

She submitted the book to HarperCollins and was promptly rejected. She got herself an agent, who submitted to HarperCollins, and was promptly rejected yet again. Running Press bought up the cookbook, and the next thing Ms. Lapine knows, there's another cookbook coming out from HarperCollins that same month, and it also provides recipes for tricking children into eating vegetables by hiding them in other foods.

What the ...?, Ms. Lapine was surely thinking at this point. Why not publish my book? Why is a book penned by Jerry Seinfeld's wife and agented by Jennifer Rudolph Walsh (powerhouse agent with powerhouse agency William Morris) all the rage at HarperCollins while I was yesterday's trash? And therein lies the answer to the author's quandary.

Mrs. Jerry Seinfeld has a platform. Her platform is made up of various planks, not the least of which is the fact that she is married to a celebrity. Who wouldn't want to book Mrs. Jerry Seinfeld on their talk show, and who the hell is this Lapine woman and who cares about her? Having a high-end agent makes a difference, and Mrs. Seinfeld got her agent because her husband is famous.

Who's book is better? That's not the point for HarperCollins. They'll move more copies because of the author's name and her connection to a popular comedian. The recipes could be wretched and it wouldn't matter. After all, an author's platform isn't constructed of the actual words on the pages.