Self-Promotion Sucks

Let’s just get that out there. It does. I hate it. There may be writers in this world who like it, but I’m going to feel pretty confident in saying they’re a minority.

But …

If you want to publish a book traditionally, you have to do it. Even if you think “Oh, I’ll skip all that need to sell myself, and my work,” and you decide to self-publish, if you ever want to sell any copies of that book, you have to do it. Even if you think you’re done self-promoting because you have a traditional publisher and they’ll do it for you, guess what? You’re way off base. You still have to do it.

It happens in small steps and big leaps. Sometimes you have to self-promote just to get an opening into a situation where you can do more self-promotion. For example, I had to sell myself to the receptionist at Costco – look professional and reasonable enough that I had some credibility – just so she’d take my information package and give me the book buyer’s contact information. And once I had that information? I had to promote myself to the book buyer.

It truly never ends.

So, assuming you’re one of those people who doesn’t enjoy self-promotion, and assuming you still agree and understand you’ll have to do it sometimes, how to manage?

(1) Be Forgiving – of yourself. You won’t capitalize on every opportunity, you won’t use every social media platform, you’ll miss some chances. You just will. You’re human.

(2) Be Giving – to others. As much as possible, couch your self-promotion in things that are useful to other people. Workshops, book club visits, interesting Facebook entries, useful blog posts.

(3) Know Your Audience. For me, attending an entry-level horse show swarming with adolescent and teenage girls who ride horses, makes lots of sense. Speaking at a senior’s club? Not so much. That’s not to say I would never do it, but it is important to know you have limits and you need to spend your time and efforts wisely, so be careful about saying yes and be smart about saying no.

(4) Set Your Limits. I could have been at horseshows every weekend all summer. But then I would have spent no time with my family and have written nothing on my new book. Another limit I’ve set is to never, ever, send out anything that says “BUY MY BOOK!” If I’m about to send out a newsletter, or write a post, and literally the only thing I can think of to say is “Buy my book”, then it’s not worth communicating. When you reach out as a writer of a published book, people know it’s for sale. You can make it easy to buy – always have copies if you’re doing an in-person event (I keep several in the trunk of my car) and have a “buy” button on your website - but “Buy my book” is a message you can only send once. If you tried, and they didn’t buy it before, they probably won’t now and they probably don’t want to hear it again.

(5) Keep Writing. The way to keep people interested and to have something new to say, is to write more books. If self-promotion is keeping you from writing, you need to set some limits and forgive yourself from some promotion efforts.

This post was inspired because I sent out my quarterly newsletter this week and I always do so with some dread and trepidation. Somebody will always write back to ask me to take them off my distribution list – and these are people I know, so it stings a bit. When that happens I always ask myself “Am I just a pushy hack?”, “Do people get sick of me sticking my name and my book in front of them?” But then other people reply and follow up on things I’ve said in the newsletter – they enjoyed a link I provided, or their daughter has started horseback riding lessons, or something totally unrelated like “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about XYZ …” and I think, OK, maybe the newsletter isn’t the worst, most shamelessly self-promoting thing I’ve ever done.

But it’s still hard. Every time. Pressing “send”, picking up the phone, introducing myself to a book buyer – it’s never simple or easy. But I believe in my book and I have to give it a chance. And yes, along the way, some people will wish they’d never heard of me, but many others (I hope) will discover a new read – girls like I was, who love books and love horses and can’t get enough – and maybe grown-ups like me will get inspired to write a book – so on balance, self-promotion is a good thing.

Although I wouldn’t mind becoming successful enough to be able to hire somebody else to do it for me!