The Art of Self-Promotion

I've come to the realization that I stink at self-promotion.  Every time I open my mouth to tell someone else about my novel, I feel ... dirty somehow.  I feel like a braggart, like I'm showing off or being boastful.  I feel like I must be the most annoying thing on the face of the Earth, thinking I'm good enough at something like writing that someone else might actually care about it.

I place the blame for this squarely on my parents (well, not really).  They always taught me growing up to be modest.  I was a fairly intelligent child, and had they not instilled that lesson in me, I ran the risk of being the smart kid that nobody liked because he was a stuck-up jerk.  Fortunately, that never happened.  (Thanks, Mom and Dad.)

Unfortunately, it also taught me to downplay every accomplishment or achievement I ever received.  Win an award?  Aw, it's nothing really.  Got a scholarship?  I just got lucky.  Got a piece published?  Great, but it's all about the music and the people who will play it.  Little could my parents anticipate that teaching me not to be a pompous airbag would be such a detriment to my creative career.

The sad part of being a Creative is that not only are we expected to come up with original, inspiring, and entertaining content, we're also expected to be our own biggest promoters and advocates.  This does not come naturally to me.  Every time I make an attempt, it hurts.  I feel like a fraud, like people are going to see my attempts to promote my work and think, "Well, doesn't he just think he's so high-and-mighty."  It never occurs to me (or occurs and is instantly discounted) that people might actually have an interest in what I'm trying to sell, or that at worst, they'll completely ignore my attempts at advertisement, placing no value judgement on the attempt at all.

I'm now at the point of hoping that success at self-promotion will help me get over my reluctance.  I let the parents of my private piano students know about the book and sold a copy.  I advertised the book in the teacher's lounge at school and sold at least four.  My wife emailed some teachers at her school and another copy suddenly showed up in my online sales.  A post on Facebook and another one's sold.  In fact, it feels like every time I talk about the book somewhere else, another copy gets sold and into someone's hands.

What's really weird is that I would have absolutely none of these reservations if I was recommending a book a friend of mine had written, or even one by a complete stranger.  I'd have not the least reluctance going on Twitter and posting, "Just read Hunger Games -- awesome book! The rest of the series, not so much," yet going on there and saying, "Just published Coming of the Heroes -- awesome book! Buy it today!" is nearly a cause for hyperventilation.  Aside from the fact my name's on one cover and not the other, how different is it, really?

And so my struggle to find the fine line between self-promotion and overzealous egotism continues.  If anyone out there has any advice or words of wisdom (even if those words are, "You've got a book -- we get it!  Enough already!"), I'd love to hear them.  In the meantime, good luck in your own creative pursuits, and good luck in promoting that most important of creative individuals -- you.