Don’t Be Shy! Self-Promotion Tips for Writers: guest post by Susan Siddeley

 

Attending writing presentations and workshops is a major part of my writing life, with the focus, until recently, on editing, character building, dialogue, and plot. But with amazing new printing possibilities and fast-changing distribution patterns so available, the days of the nurturing publisher are disappearing. Getting “out there,” grooming an audience to buy your book, is more and more your responsibility as the author.

The auditorium was full for Farzana Doctor’s recent presentation at North York Central Library “Getting Yourself Out There: Self-Promotion for Emerging Writers.” Farzana is the library’s fall 2012 writer-in-residence.

I usually scribble madly in presentations, but in this case she provided skeleton plans to fill in; these corresponded to PowerPoint slides summarizing her suggestions. Topics included the line between self-promotion and being obnoxious, and how to develop a mailing list. She also shared the promotional schedule for her novel Six Metres of Pavement.

Her message was simple. It’s up to you.

You have to start building the platform from which to launch your book long before it is completed. This ensures that when publication day arrives, you are prepared, with a profile, public persona, and product with which to woo the world.

You must use everything available, plus imagination, to endorse yourself, she advised. No one will think you big-headed — that’s a concept from last century. For authors, self-centredness is “in,” and the tools for building your platform are in place: e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, Web and blog pages, and book trailers.

Don’t be shy. Build a following.

She stressed you need to be whimsical. Use photos, fliers, cards, video clips, marshal friends into promo squads, build relationships by volunteering at literary events, join writing organizations (examples in Canada include Professional Writers Association of Canada, The Writers’ Union of Canada, and The Writers’ Community of Durham Region) and local writing groups. You need to be supportive and generous to others, to share, and to pass on news. (No one asked, But . . . when do we write?)

For people like me, raised to mind my own business, never blow my own trumpet, and expect failure — and one consolation is that I’ve never been disappointed — self-promotion is a real challenge. Adapting to and using social media is fascinating, yet repellent. Nevertheless the scenario shift must be faced. If you want to write and sell a book, you need to build that platform and mount it with a loud hailer, now.

Yet listening to Farzana’s suggestions I realized I have been on the right track promoting myself and my memoir, Home First. I network. I was involved in founding two writing groups, one in Chile and one in Toronto, and I organize writers’ retreats at Los Parronales, my home in Santiago. These days I post more frequently on my Los Parronales blog, and also on the Santiago Writers blog, The Tuesday Prompt, and I continue to send short stories and poems to competitions and anthologies.

Farzana challenged us, before we left, to approach three people and introduce either ourselves or our current project with a 30-second “elevator speech.” Throwing caution to the wind, I honed my bio, not easy when life and work are intertwined and complex: “I’m a writer who published a memoir last year titled Home First, and I’m working on a sequel. I reached that point thanks to attending writing groups and retreats. I now host an annual residential workshop in Chile.”

Rather than pitching to a fellow participant, I made my way to the front of the room and presented my blurb to Farzana herself. Then, thinking I might as well aim high, I handed her a brochure for my next retreat.

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SUSAN SIDDELEY, author, poet, workshop host, mother, wife, friend, Santiago Writer, Parliament Street Writer …

 

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Note from Allyson:

Also on this topic, read “Yes, You CAN Tell People: On Writers and Self-Promotion” by Dinty W. Moore, reblogged from Brevity’s Nonfiction Blog:

“A graduate student here at Ohio University had a nice literary magazine publication recently, and when I asked him for details, so I could share his good news with others in the program, he e-mailed back, ‘I’m not really one for self-promotion (makes me feel a little icky).’

“I hear this often — ‘I don’t like self-promotion’ or ‘she’s so self-promoting’ — as if it were a horrible literary transgression to make the results of one’s considerable effort known and available. Why is it shameful, after having worked very hard at something, and had some success in seeing it to publication, to then tell folks? I don’t get it….” Read the entire post here.