The announcement of the release date for Duality is drawing near, and I find myself spending every spare moment – outside of work and writing my second novel – on areas of promotion and creating promotional material for the book. I have to admit that while I have an intense fondness for the creative process as a whole, it does take a certain type of vision to make a promotion pop and I don’t have the interest or ego that’s needed to really boost myself. I don’t like talking about myself much at all, to the point where I’m not even writing my own author bio for the blurb to go inside my books. It’s much easier to have a friend who’s known me for years to take care of that. When asked if I was sure I didn’t want to take care of it myself, I fled.
I congratulate the individual capable of going on a rant or tangent about his or herself without feeling a need to cringe, bathe, or confess. It would seem like the only time I’m able to even remotely approach that type of self-adulation is when interviewing for a job. It’s in those moments that I enter something of a fugue state and become possessed by a snake oil salesman that could convince my interviewer to buy land in Atlantis on credit. But, hey – she gets me hired.
Maybe I should put her on the payroll and make her head of promotion…
I do feel that I have a good eye for typeset and layout. I love working with colors and coming up with ways to draw visual attention, and while looking through dozens of stock photos to extract the pieces that would go farthest toward providing examples of the theme and mood of Duality, I was like a child in an amusement park with unlimited tickets. I can do that sort of promotion all day: invoking a feeling of curiosity that would make a potential reader think, “What’s that? I need to have a closer look.”
When I sent a sneak-peek of the first part of the promotion to a friend her response was, “…that’ll for sure lead me to read it.” That was golden to me. That is the ideal response and what I am looking for – and the great part is that there were only three words in the promo – and none of them had to do with me!
I guess I did just talk a little bit about myself, didn’t I? And, I do talk about myself here and there throughout the entire blog. But, that’s conversational, really. It’s not what one might consider an arc for promotion. Maybe that’s the key, though. Perhaps I shouldn’t look at it as having to close a hard “sell.”
It’s more like a sharing of ideas. It’s just me chatting about why I love Duality or any of my other work and hopefully, along the way, you’ll start to believe that you should love it, too.
Now, where would you like to sign?
