Saturday 28 September 2013

Self-promotion for the bashful

WHEN I told a writing buddy about my fears of falling under the spotlight of self-promotion, he said 'get over yourself.'
A bit harsh, I know, but he is absolutely right and also happens to be quite a successful author.
I am usually the one behind the camera; the one conducting the interviews; and the one promoting another person's work.
Self-promotion is anathema to me and one of the most difficult tasks a self-published author will ever have to undertake. You just have to let go of the pride and say it's got to be done.
The impersonal nature of social media makes promotional work relatively easy to stomach. It's like creating a mirror image of yourself and hiding behind that artificial persona that really isn't you. I will probably never meet the thousands of Twitter, Facebook and blog followers I've made and so can dare to be a little more blatant about pushing my book on them, often just falling short of spamming.
It is comforting to note that I have joined the serried ranks of thousands of other authors doing the same thing and there's a sense of safety in numbers; a collective conscience with a common goal in mind. Those numbers, however, are so vast that it makes it almost impossible for anyone to notice an individual grain of sand in the desert dunes.
There are, mercifully, many book reviewers, bloggers and readers who generously give up their time to help support authors. I'm compiling a list of them on Pinterest.
Some charge for their time and effort, while others do it for the love of reading or as a cross-promotional tool. I've had a look around the internet and can't find any real evidence of whether paying a site to promote your book actually equates to sales.
The good people who do it for free are not looking for a quick business opportunity and have no intention of fleecing authors. Avid readers will offer to review a book for merely the price of an e-copy; while bloggers, especially those who have just started up, will offer an interview or guest post in order to swell their page counts and followers.
The trouble is that there are just too many authors out there all wanting their books noticed and, I've seen it many a time on Goodreads, a reader will put out a request for review copies and the next moment free books are coming at them in a relentless swarm like a scene from a zombie movie.
There's a lot more about this on my publisher's blog at Ivy Moon Press.
The next step, I am dreading: launching my book and myself in the physical world with no avatar to hide behind.
Makes writing a book seem like a walk in the park ....




4 comments:

Rosemary Gemmell said...

Oh how I and many others identify with this reluctance and horror of self-promotion! It's definitely a necessity these days but it's difficult getting the balance right sometimes.

Janice said...

You are so right that it's easier to promote from behind the safety screen of a laptop, Sara. I find it much less daunting to blog, tweet and post, than I do to appear, speak and tout! I wish you luck!

Janice xx

Harriet Schultz said...

As another longtime journalist turned novelist, I agree about the strangeness of becoming the interviewee instead of the interviewer! Self-promotion is not a choice, however, if you want readers to discover your book. It's a necessity--a constant one, unfortunately.

Sara Bain said...

I'm glad I'm not alone, Rosemary, Janice and Harriet. I take comfort that I'm not the only one doing it ; )