CAN YOU TOOT YOUR OWN HORN?

Self-publishing books is teaching me a lot about promotion, something I've always been lousy at doing.  I'm learning that you can't promote a books you've written without promoting yourself.  In other words, you've got to toot your own horn, and I don't like doing that.  That comes from being witness to others doing it, and I know how that went over with me.  It's better to get somebody else to promote you and your book, but if you don't have that at your disposal, that just leaves you.  And so, when invited to be interviewed on a local radio show about interesting people, I took a shot at it.  Did that this morning, and it went fairly well.

The two guys who do that show are good at asking the right questions, and that's important in an interview where you're promoting something.  I did well enough this morning that I've been asked to come back in a week or two, after they've had a chance to read one of my books.  They want to do a book review, have me answer questions about how I developed the book, etc.  I can do that with ease.  What I have trouble with is touting myself as an author.  What is your background as a writer?  What have you done other than write books?  In other words, who are you and why do you think people would be interested in reading what you write?  My responses are often too much along the line of, "Aw shucks!  I'm just a guy with a big imagination who likes to tell stories."  And that won't cut it.

Whether or not I like it, the author of a book should learn how to market himself.  I don't write nonfiction, but even a fiction writer needs to convince readers that they know what they're doing.  You need to be able to present yourself as someone who has the background, the history and education, for what he writes about.  You need to be more than a dreamer with a great imagination, or someone who can write well, or someone with a specific agenda for what points they want to make.  It takes some showmanship in presenting yourself as a qualified author.  I'm confident that I have those qualities as an author, but I'm a lot less confident when it comes to tooting my own horn. 

But . . . I'm working on it.