Balancing Shrill, Skill and Shill

This writer's version of hell

“It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.” – Abraham Lincoln

Promotion.

The very most brutal/worst/most squirmy part of writing (for me)—so much so that if anyone says I do it well, I want to hide in a cave.

Writing a book takes a certain set of skills (for me) :

• Intense concentration.

• Imagination.

• The ability to repeatedly read the same 400 pages.

• The fortitude to take criticism without weeping.

• The willpower not to eat every single second.

You must learn to shut out all noise at a given moment and love solitude.

Getting your book into readers’ hands requires the opposite: writing sound bites to accompany Instagram-worthy photos, blathering about oneself while sounding modest, and balancing online me-me-me without having rego-rego-rego(readers’ eyes glaze over) or worse, rsoy (readers sick of you).

Anyone writer who read the hysterical but frighteningly close-to-the-truth New Yorker piece on promotion years ago knows how much falls on the writer these days. (Few readers know this; members were shocked to learn writers did their own promotion at a recent book club.) Even if one has great and supportive publicists (which I do), it’s still up to the writer to get that book read.

When my first book launched, I was warned, “You have to sell it one book at a time.”

How in the damned world was I supposed to do that? In terror, I read every book I could find (thus buying their books) on the topic, listened to experienced writers, attended promotion forums, jumped from one online site to another, lurked in online forums, came out of the closet, and wrote sad, plaintive pleas on the same forums: in short, I gave myself a cheap, fast MSMB (master of selling my book).

The problem is this: except for the most ego-driven or ego-protected among us, it’s an unnatural position for most writers. We like working in pajamas. We live for watching sentences unfold as ideas formulate, not shaking our booties.

The uncomfortable truth is this: If you want to follow your fantasy of writing and publishing, you must find that balance. You must learn to sell without appearing crazed—nobody likes the snake oil man. You must swallow your pride and put it out there—Look, I wrote a book! Want to buy it? —without coming across as greedy.

We fail all the time. During the promotion of my first novel in 2010, The Murderer’s Daughters (see how I got that in there?) I received an email from the moderator of an online alumni group to which I belonged. I’d sent out a group email inviting members to a reading I’d be giving in NYC and received this squirm-inducing scold:

Usually, we try not to use the XYZ Group for personal promotion.

Please refrain in the future.

Shame overcame me as my self-image went from energetic-information-sharer to self-promoting-hussy. I imagined all the whispers in the online hallways: Who the hell does she think she is? God, enough, already. Will she ever shut up about that damn book?

But they said I have to! I whine.

I remind myself: this is my dream. Suck it up, self. 

As I head toward another book launch, I work to tame two monsters:

The voracious me-me-me who thinks about getting my book out with the crazed determination of a lion stalking fresh meat for her cubs.

My introverted extrovert is embarrassed and wants only to pray readers will find their way to The Many Mothers of Ivy Puddingstone. (See, there I go again.)

I remind myself that my-friend-the-doctor doesn’t walk around bragging about the exams she recently performed. Chemists aren’t posting news of their best formulas.

So, readers, please forgive us our shilling. Unlike doctors, we don’t have patients begging for the next appointment (or, in our case, the next book), and nobody can buy a book they haven’t heard of.

A thousand times mea culpa for when we pass from the decorum line into the squirm zone.

Fellow writers: Find a launch buddy or two. Or three. Someone with whom you can be as whiny and self-pitying as you need, someone who won’t judge you for it. BFF book launch sisters and brothers. Ensure they’re people you can genuinely root for and who will root for you. Know that sometimes she’ll be ahead of you. That’s okay—keep rooting. That’s what sisters do for each other.

And take a deep breath when the green-eyed monster takes you by the throat (What! She’s on that list! He got that review).

And if you’re lucky enough to get on that list or get that review, take the time to shout out the book you’re reading (that isn’t yours!), the one giving you the pleasure you hope to offer readers.