A minor freak out about publicity

*This message brought to you by my belief that we should be honest about all the ups and downs of this crazy business*

So yesterday evening, I found myself have an internal hissy fit over publicity. How do I get people to buy my books, I silently screamed at myself. How? HOW?

I know the answer is – I can't. Not really. All I can do it write the best books I can, and then hope that they mean so much to people who read them that they'll talk about it, and word of mouth will build.

Note – this assumes that I will not take the Duncan Lay route of actually going to bookstores and selling my books to passers-by. It's really not something that I think I can do.

Of course, I'm not doing nothing. There's my blog, my Twitter and Facebook accounts, my newsletter. I do giveaways. I comment on other people's blogs. I'm involved with two group blogs that get my name out to a wider group of readers.

And I'm continuing to write, and submit, and try to make my work appear as something that people will want to read.

Tobias Buckell has a FABULOUS post on the difference between milestones and goals, and how we writers can focus on the milestones eg getting published when that's something we have NO CONTROL OVER.

I say that again, for my own sake if for nobody else's – YOU HAVE NO CONTROL OVER WHETHER YOU GET PUBLISHED. YOU HAVE NO CONTROL OVER WHETHER PEOPLE WILL BUY YOUR BOOK. YOU HAVE NO CONTROL OVER WHETHER PEOPLE HEAR YOUR MESSAGE OR NOT.

YOU HAVE NO CONTROL OVER THESE THINGS.

So what do you have control over? As Tobias says – the words. The contracts. Your relationships with family and friends.

I realised long ago that my publicity work probably wasn't going to have any impact on sales, but being a minor control freak I needed to feel I was doing something.

Last night's freak out reminded me of that. I'm doing this not because I think it will actually achieve anything, but because it makes me feel good to know that at least I'm giving it a go.

Focus less on the end results that I cannot control, and more on making my actions here and now interesting and fun for me to do.