The Trouble With Self Promotion

The Trouble With Self Promotion

 

After years of work, a great deal of time spent
writing, re-writing, abandoning, taking up again, and endless rounds of editing, self doubt, and convincing myself that no one will like it, I finally took the big plunge and queried, accepted a contract, and had a book published.

 

Now what?

Self promotion, that’s what.

 

No matter the size of the publisher, or if you go the traditional publisher route, small independent press, or self publish, nobody is going to know about or buy your book without promotion and a lot of it.  The smaller the company, the smaller the promotional budget they’ll have.  But regardless of the size of the company the bulk of the promotion will fall on the author’s shoulders.  It’s expected that you will take up that burden and run with it.  After all, who has your self-interest at heart more than you?  That means you, the writer, have to do a lot of work to promote yourself as an author and your book.

 

My first attempt at bulk/multi self promotion can be summed up with one word.  It’s not a good word so we’ll just say “Oh crap!” and leave it at that.

 

The trouble with self promotion, my trouble to be specific although guaranteed I’m not alone, could probably have been helped a great deal with being more prepared and organized.  But in such a big task it takes a lot of time to be prepared and organized in that huge world of promotion and, like writing a novel, that will be an ongoing work in progress.

 Anger and frustration.  Those are two good words to describe my experience.  The biggest challenges working against me: poor internet connection, a less than stellar working mouse (okay, its more dysfunctional than functional), and starting out already tired and frustrated, with an overdose of wild hyper kids to reduce any attempt at concentrating to a slathering glob of damn I wish I had a glass of wine and a quiet place.

 

So this is lesson one in How To Be A Writer – Promote Yourself & Your Book:

-              Distractions are a killer just as much here as when you are trying to write

-              Tired and grumpy?  Let’s find our happy place before we start.

-              Preparation and organization ahead, yeah let’s work on that.

-              A good internet connection and reliable computer are huge pluses, essential even.

-              Spending four hours or more fighting with the internet, computer, distractions, et al to post a measly 8 quick past and post attempts to promote your book sucks the big one and was probably a huge waste of time.