Online Writing
Is Self-Promotion a Prickly Issue to You?
If disclosing pluses in your career and endorsing your stories make you feel awkward, then you need to read this story
Words are my tools in over 30 years as a writer. But words fail me — no, they make me anxious, give me jitters — when I talk about what I have achieved in my career, including my books that were published the conventional way.
It had not been easy for me to be a speaker or a resource person in creative writing seminars and workshops, or be interviewed for print publication and radio and television broadcast, or even by students wanting to know where I get my story ideas to be featured in their school publication.
I’m better at weaving words, and not so good when speaking in public in which I needed to disclose my qualifications.
Meeting my readers up close, however, was a pleasure even if I felt rather sheepish. I liked the interaction during book signings. The same with responding to their letters and text messages about my body of work that they had read.
I felt “at home” with them, in a manner of speaking, because I did not have to promote myself and make an appeal for…
