Marketing Books and Marketing Myself

For all the writing I do about plants, kids, and the weather, you would be forgiven for forgetting that most of my work time is spent writing books. Honestly, some weeks, I try to forget it too. But, after nearly two years of hard work, my next book is in its final stages! Which means, to be honest, all the parts I don’t really love. I’ve got to go through the final proofreading changes, making sure that all the em dashes are en dashes (or is it the other way around?). Then I’ve got to put my cover ideas down on the digital page and get a completed image for publishing. And then there’s the marketing.

The book has a planned release date of January 10th, so I need to start promoting it pretty much now. Which I suppose is what I’m doing here, but to be honest, I think of this blog and its readers as friends and family, so it’s not quite the same. And by not quite the same, I mean not nearly as nerve-wracking. It’s the difference between talking to a bunch of people at family BBQ and giving a speech to a crowd of people.

I used to be good at this stuff, I think. Back when I worked full-time, I used to ask people for money all the time. I was in nonprofit fundraising so I wasn’t even trying to sell them anything. Even in my volunteer work, I don’t really mind asking people to give. But when I’m selling a product, specifically a creative work I’ve put my heart into, it gets a lot harder.

I suppose the hard part comes in because I feel like I’m selling myself, in part. I mean, not really, because my writing and my self are two very different things. For one thing, I think about my writing a lot more so it’s usually more measured, witty, and cohesive. The flip side of that is that my writing is out there, unchangeable, forever. Once it’s published, there are no more redo’s. If I go back later and don’t like something, welp, I guess I can just try not to do it again next time.

It’s not that I’m not proud of my work. I’m so proud of it. This will be the fourth book I’ve written (and the third I’ve gotten all the way to publishing). Bringing a book from a blank page to a hard copy is a tremendous undertaking. And even if it’s not perfect, even if I go back in a decade and see those flaws, the accomplishment remains.

But marketing it is a completely different skill set. One that I don’t have. Not yet, anyway. I haven’t done a ton of promo for my other books, but there’s a part of me that thinks it’s time. Time to talk about my work. Time to talk about why I think these books are worth reading. Time to ask people if they can spare time and a few bucks to check it out.

So, for you guys, I guess this is my way of saying that over the next few months, you might see a few more posts about my books and a few fewer (can you tell I’m a writer?) posts about gardening. If it’s clunkily done or boring, please, give me grace. It’s just one more thing in the long list of hard things I’ve decided to learn how to do. And as the saying goes, if you want to be good at something, you have to be willing to be bad at it first.