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Feature

Changing Platforms Without Getting Hit by the Train

by Nina L. Diamond

When you’re reinventing yourself as an author, how do you change platforms without getting hit by the metaphorical train?

Award-winning, critically acclaimed author and independent Celtic scholar Carl McColman is figuring that out right now. After thriving on a platform created to market his ten books to Pagan, Wiccan, and Celtic Spirituality readers, McColman underwent a profound spiritual transformation and converted to Catholicism, appropriately enough, on Easter 2005, just a few months after I profiled him and his successful platform building in my Nov-Dec 2004 Independent Publisher feature, You’ve Gotta Have a Gimmick: The Truth About Author Platforms.

Among McColman’s ten books, his third, Embracing Jesus and the Goddess: A Radical Call for Spiritual Sanity (Fair Winds Press/Rockport 2001), may have foreshadowed the author’s own eventual spiritual leap, but it was followed by such titles as The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Paganism (Alpha Press/Penguin 2003), and Before You Cast a Spell: Understanding the Power of Magic (New Page Books/Career Press 2004).

I spoke with Atlanta-based author Carl McColman recently to discuss the challenges, and, yes, even triumphs, of creating a new platform, and what other authors can learn from his experiences.

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ND: What has this transition from Pagan author to progressive Christian author been like for you?

CM: I’m really back to square one and I have to build a new platform. There’s a level at which my platform isn’t defined by religious identity. I don’t think my future is as a Christian author, but as an author who explores post-modern Christian mysticism. That’s a subtle, but important, difference. I don’t live because I write, I write because I live. I learned that by walking away from a career that was no longer working for me. But, overall, my career is much more exciting than I thought it would be at this time.

How so? What are your new opportunities?

I’ve gone from a market of 400,000 people to one of about 50 million. I’ve become a very small fish in a big pond. I’ve been focusing on my blog, on the internet, and on teaching. I’m concentrating on building a new platform.

Some Pagans have an interfaith approach to their Paganism, and they think it’s cool what I’m doing. The new readers are comfortable with the fact that I used to be a Pagan. They’re liberal.

The bad news is that I haven’t sold a book in two years. The good news is that I have two book proposals circulating and publishers are reading them. On some level it would be a mistake to publish right away because my platform isn’t where it should be. One of the reasons I was frustrated as a Pagan author wasn’t just because I didn’t want to be a Pagan anymore, but because my platform had gone as far as it could.

How is your experience building a platform different this time around?

I’m more objective about what a platform should be than I used to be. I’m more demanding of myself. I have at least 5,000 readers of my blog every month and it’s growing. As a Pagan, that would’ve been a big number, but as a Christian, it’s chump change. My blog isn’t a Christian blog, though, because I write about other things. I call myself a Druid with a rosary. I’m a much bigger “former Pagan” than I was as a Pagan. I’ve become better known for being a former Pagan than I was when I was a Pagan author.

That’s pretty ironic. What do you make of that?

I became a “former Pagan” because that’s what I needed to do spiritually. Ironically, even thought I knew it would kill my career as a Pagan author, it’s now made me better known. Liberal Christianity is all the rage right now. Suddenly, it’s hot to be a progressive Christian, so my timing turned out to be good. If you do what you love, the doors will open sooner or later.

There comes a time when you’ve gotta move on. Reinvent yourself. Then, suddenly, you’ve got a clear playing field. If it ain’t working, just let go of it.

Part of building your new platform is teaching. You used to teach spirituality and mysticism with Celtic, Goddess, Pagan, and Wiccan themes. What are you teaching now?

I’m teaching mysticism and spiritual philosophy at Emory University (in Atlanta), and at churches I teach Celtic Christianity and Christian mysticism.

And, what about your writing? In addition to your blog, where are you getting published now?

I’m writing a lot for Beliefnet, and I think they’re my best audience. Whether it’s a publication or books, I’m less and less interested in writing to make my editors happy. If they have a vision that’s not my vision, I’m not going to do it. I’ll turn it down. I turned down a book idea (that I didn’t like) that one of my previous publishers had for a Christian mysticism book.

Being a writer is perseverance, and not taking no for an answer. I’m having fun building my new platform. I’m more confident because I’ve done it once before. I’m doing this because I love it, because I want to write, and because I want to help people. I’m much more at ease with who I am as a writer than when I was a Pagan, so it’s more than just where I belong spiritually. It’s amazing the doors that have opened to me just by me being who I am.

The things you’re doing to create your new platform are income-producing: primarily teaching and writing.

That’s right. Like most authors, books have never been my primary source of income. I’ve always made more money from teaching and one-on-one counseling. Right now, I’m also ghosting a book that’s not Christian or Pagan. It’s Hindu, and it’s a memoir about the relationship between a woman and her guru, and about yoga and meditation.

What advice do you have for others who are building their first platform, or, like you, are reinventing themselves and crating a new platform?

Do what you love, the success will follow; the miracles will follow. Embrace it, walk into it, be comfortable not knowing what your next book is going to look like. Don’t give up. Don’t be a victim. Just do it.

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Nina L. Diamond is a journalist, essayist, and the author of Voices of Truth: Conversations with Scientists, Thinkers & Healers. Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including Omni, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, The Chicago Tribune, and The Miami Herald.

Ms. Diamond was a writer and performer on Pandemonium, the National Public Radio (NPR) satirical humor program, for its entire run in Miami and select markets nationwide from 1984-1998. As an editor, she works frequently with other authors and journalists on both fiction and non-fiction.

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