I am amazing and this is my book!

On self-promotion and why it hurts (but also, buy my book!)

My new novel is out this month. For that reason, I’ve become extra active on my socials, endlessly self-promoting and announcing and posting everything to do with the novel. It is something I worked on really hard and I am proud of it but I never liked this – the launching – part of having a book out.  Mainly because despite what you might see on socials, I think many writers don’t enjoy having to self-promote; for most of us it’s a special kind of hell.  But it’s a hell we’ve all agreed to participate in and create. 

In the past, when I was with a big publisher, I had a publicist who did a lot of this stuff for me and I would only post if something really extraordinary happened, like when a celebrity gushed about the book. But if you look at my recent posts, it seems that I am absolutely delighted to be telling you about all my successes and although most of this is true, what you don’t see is what you don’t see. What you do see is an illusion, a performance created because it is expected of us, writers, to create it. 

I used to fight it with Guy, my first novel (I even asked to have some posts about that book taken down, which now makes me want to palmface emoji) but by the time Monster was in the works, I was full-on fretting over marketing and publicity because I knew that with a small publisher I was not only competing with bigger names and bigger titles but that I also had to create that illusion myself, no one else was going to do it for me. I know there are some authors who are well-off enough to be able to afford a personal publicist, authors who can even afford to pay for tables at bookstores to display their books, but the reality for most small-press authors is that we have to create the buzz ourselves. And we have to make it seem successful and exciting, which means dragging every little praise or mention and tacking it onto our social-media profiles, endlessly proving that we are amazing. 

I’ve always loved writing because it helped me connect with people when I couldn’t, when I was first learning the language. And later, I loved it because it provided a barrier between me and people – I still wanted to connect but being a shy and introverted person, peopleing (as a verb) was always a complicated thing in my life. I think one of the reasons why I drank was to give myself some social courage and it didn’t help that I ended up depending on it. I don’t want to make it seem like I’m so precious I can’t talk to people, but I’m just trying to say writing afforded my certain anonymity and a feeling of safety. If I were in film, I would be most happy behind the camera, not in front of it. 

So the idea of self-promotion and having to be in front of the proverbial camera is challenging for many of us who like to hide. I haven’t asked many other authors how they feel about it but I think many of us aren’t thrilled to showboat. I don’t know, maybe some like it, I’m just saying I am not thrilled but I do it. And I let it take me into some strange places, like when I started posting bad dancing videos this summer on my “artsy” account because I noticed they would bring more attention – the same attention I cringe and shy away from. More followers! Please go away!  

Now I’ve locked myself into a bit of a trap where I’ve grown used to (addicted) to this attention and to the self-promoting and at the same time feeling like I just want to go back under the rock where I have my laptop and where it’s quiet. 

At the same time, yes, I do have a new book out and I want everyone to know about it!