As Lindsay Buroker points out in this article, Authorpreneurship 101: Shameless Self-Promotion vs. Shameful Self-Promotion:

“As an author today, you have to be willing to self-promote if you want to sell books. That’s just the way it is. And, as with most things, there are good ways to go about it and bad ways, or, as I’m calling them shameless ways and shameful ways. The former can earn you new readers and the respect of your peers.”

Many authors, both new and established, are all at sea when it comes to self-promotion. They think self-promotion equates to becoming a huckster. It doesn’t.

The key: love your book, and have respect for readers.

In Why Do You Love Your Book?, I suggested an exercise:

When I chat with writers who “hate” marketing their books, they’ve forgotten their book in the frenzy of “marketing” it.

They’ve forgotten what they love about it.

Here’s an exercise which will help. Sit down with a pen and paper, and write the answer to the question: “What do I LOVE about my book?”

Yes, WRITE the answer. You need to put it down on paper. The answer will surprise you. It’s often not what you expect.

When you know why you love your book, you’ll be able to talk about it. Love your readers, and you can promote, without necessarily mentioning your book, and nevertheless inspire them to check it out.

There’s nothing wrong with self-promotion. Your true readers — the ones who will love your book — are longing to read it. It doesn’t matter how “shy” you are. Once you remember why you love your book, you’ll be able to talk about it — and that’s all promotion really is.

I spend hours reading every day; I read a lot. I read both fiction and nonfiction. There are many people just like me. We want to hear about YOUR book, because good books are hard to find. Become enthusiastic. Tell us about yourself, and about your book too.

Please stop thinking about promotion as a chore — marketing your book can be fun.

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Angela Booth

Owner at Angela Booth

Angela Booth is a top copywriter, multi-published author, and writing teacher. She offers many guides, courses and classes to help writers to enhance their skills on her websites. She also provides inspiration and motivation for writers on her writing blogs. Angela has been writing successfully since the late 1970s, and was online in the 1980s, long before the birth of the Web. Her business books have been widely published.

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