How to Self-Promote When You Hate Self-Promotion

Or, how to make this necessary evil somewhat bearable

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Some people don’t have any problem talking about how great their work is. Some lunatics even look forward to it.

I’m not one of those people. Nor am I one of those lunatics. For me, self-promotion is akin to putting my right pinkie into a vice and slowly turning it until I’m left with four digits.

Despite this aversion, I’ve managed to carve out a decent living as a writer without losing too much of my sanity.

If you also have zero interest in acting like a peacock and showing all the world your feathers to get people to see your work, welcome to the club.

I hated self-promotion so much that I even wrote a book called “Shy by Design,” which came out this year. (See what I did there? Self-promotion!) I learned a couple of important lessons when my publisher and I launched the book. I’ll share them with you here so that you can incorporate them into your marketing efforts.

1. Talk about how much you hate self-promotion

I was warned by numerous authors that once I was done writing my book, I’d hate it. I didn’t find that to be the case. In fact, I was really proud of what I’d written.