How to Network and Self-Promote as an Author Without Being Gross
To my mind, “gross” is willingly failing to heed social cues when asking for an altruistic personal favor. It is trespassing beyond another person’s clearly established boundaries in order to benefit one’s own agenda.
I myself have flirted with or at least felt gross when seeking blurbs (words of support from more famous writers) for the backs of my books. And as I enter my second year of running a small business, I’m likely gross more than I even know. And here I sit, far too frequently in your email in-box. I wish there were a way to offer subscriptions to Substack without clogging up people’s in-boxes. I take no offense if you unsubscribe. Of course my goal is to be interesting or at least relevant enough that people won’t want to do this, but reading is subjective and well, some days I bore myself. This is a flagrant attempt to seem less gross.
In addition to being a (sometimes gross) writer and freelance editor, I’m also a person who’s often approached as the direct or indirect object of networking. I cannot tell you the number of times that people have come to me and asked me to pass along their books to Stephen King or Elizabeth Strout or Jennifer Egan or Stephen King.
At any rate, here are some tips I’ve gathered both as a self-promoter and object of self-promotion:
At writer’s conferences and festivals, attendees often feel pressure to make connections and cozy up to the more influential people. See point 6. Direct those nerves to your work before you leave for said conference or festival, and then be yourself. Like a shtick-y hook at the beginning of a story or a book is off-putting, so is a forced and shtick-filled introduction. That said, do approach your favorite authors or editors if they are not otherwise engaged and mention which works of theirs you loved. Or just say a kind, low-key hello. If they respond eagerly, be friendly and be yourself. I will repeat that phrase many times here.
Be honest, but delicate. Mention your new project to the above people or to acquaintances—something like “I have a new book out. Eek, it’s nerve-wracking to be published” is enough. Not, “Please read it/buy it/help promote it.”
Unless you are asking for a blurb. In that case, a blurb request letter should also be honest— but delicate and appreciative. Being delicate means don’t give people your hard sell. Refine your “elevator pitch” (your one or two-sentence description) by practicing it and see how people react—a good time to do this is the period of time between handing in your final draft and publication, that yawning chasm of time that causes most authors angst. (So much so that we at HPE have created a service called “author launching” to help turn dead time into something useful.) Be understanding when people can’t or won’t blurb your book. Send thank-you notes and small gifts if they do. Reading someone’s book and providing a blurb is a huge favor, like ten or more free hours of their time. One of my favorite sayings of my father’s is, “Expect nothing, appreciate everything.”
You get one shot to announce your book via email, and one more on social media (one per platform). Be yourself, but be appreciate. You might say something like, “I’m so happy and a little nervous to say that my novel, Wonderful Me, just came out with Blowfish Press. Please consider picking it up and if you like it, I’d be grateful if you’d help spread the word. Reviews on Amazon really help authors. Thank you!”
Of course, everyone expects you to post reviews and any exciting news about your book. We want to see these! Always best to use gratitude here again: “I’m so relieved/glad for/surprised by this positive review of Wonderful Me that appeared in People Magazine” works. Not “I’m so sorry to flood your feed with all these good reviews, and People Magazine is for dentist offices and losers, but hey, I’ll take this great review since so many people read this magazine!” Skip the humblebragging and attitude.
Never double dip in the blurb bowl. Don’t ask the same famous author who blurbed you once to blurb you again. Don’t hit up your contacts to attend more than one event. Show them your tour schedule on that initial email and on social media, and then let it go.
Do not butter up/flatter someone with the sole purpose of asking for a favor. This is never not obvious.
This may be my most urgent point here: Rely on the quality of your novel/memoir/book/whatnot, not on networking, to sell your work. Put all your energy and then more of it into revising. Then revise it again. Rinse and repeat again and again until your deadline or until you are unable to stop yourself from hurling your project out the window. Good work sells itself far better than anything else.
Once again: when trying to get people interested in your work, be yourself. The right people will like your work. Try not to care about the rest. Be kind to them. They might like thrillers more than literary story collections, celebrity memoir more than experimental prose.
Be on social media organically, not solely to promote yourself or your work. If people like your voice and what you have to say, they’ll gravitate to your work. Someone who is here to sell something is very clearly someone who is here to sell something.
Be kind. Help others promote their work. Help the people who blurbed you promote their work.
In a few weeks, I get to go present at the Kauai Writers Conference, where I’ll teach a master class on writing short stories and speak with some pretty fabulous writers. I can already imagine myself internally tamping down my effusiveness when meeting them.
On the flip side, I’ll have students both in my class and in manuscript consultation sessions (why did I agree to do this just before my Best American Short Stories deadline…), and I hope they’ll feel comfortable being themselves and asking questions—there are zero dumb questions. I also hope they’ll realize that I will most likely not— hell, definitely will not pass along their manuscript to Stephen King.