I don’t like promoting myself.

Let’s not kid ourselves.

We’re asking someone, probably a stranger, to buy our stuff. Like us cause of this shiny thing here.


I have this SWEET new book trailer for Queen of Spades!

Awakening is on sale for 99 cents, & its on KDP!!

Darkening comes out next week, and soon, VERY SOON, I will have hard copies!!!

Why is it so hard to promote ourselves then when there is so much to be proud of?

I want the results of promoting; people to buy my book. But its a very different step between putting your book out there and putting yourself out there. Crossing those hurdles is hard and I keep lying to myself about why I don’t do it. Why is that? When we are so proud is it so hard to say; hey, buy my book, its kind of awesome.

If you needed a taste of it, here it is on Netgalley as well. There are already a few very nice five star reviews. Cool right?

Even people on Goodreads think its pretty good!

Why is it so freaking difficult to be pleased with myself at this point in time? To say to you, a stranger, that you might like this book I wrote and right now its super cheap.

Because we care too much about the results and the fear of failure isn’t just about having accomplished all of this, but that it goes nowhere. We all want books finished, with agents, published, mass buying, film deals, someone to call me darling and peel my grapes.

But what we mostly want to be told is we did good. We are filled with so much self doubt as we wade the murky waters of what success looks like, and how we value both ourselves and our work. Most of us who’ve been in this industry a while realize that the best thing you can get out of a book is that someone enjoyed it. We know not everyone will like it, maybe for very good reasons or very dumb reasons but its the inherent fear of why try asking for someone to buy it when we could fail.

How that defines us as people and what we place of self value, not on good or bad reviews but on… nothing. It’d be better to hear the faults than have no response at all. That’s what we fear. That it’s not just a potentially bad review – but that it just dies a slow death of indifference.

When the concept of a sliver of our souls might be ignored, its hard to say to someone these simple words;

I wrote this book. It’s a part of me. Could you read the first bit – tell me if you like it if you have the time too, but its cool if you don’t. I just hope you can check it out, and if you do that you enjoy your time.

Phew.

That was really hard. But if you have the time, I’d appreciate it if you got my book.

There I said it.

So… have you read it yet?