80 You Have a Book in You At the end of the proposal, sometimes almost as an afterthought, is a description of what the author could do in terms of marketing the book. Radio interviews, book signings, and speaking events—the proposal concludes with the author’s past experience with such marketing e昀昀orts and his or her hopes for the future. (Jack and I were speaking to over 250,000 people per year each.) Well, that was then, even if “then” was just a few years ago. 吀栀is is now! You’ve heard it said that the last shall be 昀椀rst? What used to be the last section of a book proposal— the description of the marketing savvy of the author—has now moved decisively up to the 昀椀rst position! If you wish to release your book using the tradi- tional mainstream paradigm of agent and publisher—as opposed to self- publishing or online release—you must, must, must be totally up to speed in your knowledge of marketing. What’s more, you’ve got to have a platform that enables you to put your knowledge into action. Simply put, your platform is the number of people who already know about you even before your book comes out. Hopefully, your platform is quite large; remember to keep saying you are a database builder, and build a data- base that you exclusively own. Your platform is the foun- dation upon which you will build even bigger numbers. 吀栀e larger your platform, the more interest you’ll receive from agents and publishers. And conversely, if you have no platform, you’re probably going to get zero interest. As