Those days are long gone.

Today, writers must be their own most ardent advocate, marketer and promoter. Self-promotion is as integral to writing success as any tool in the writing toolbox. In this post, we’ll look at five marketing strategies that will help you gain more exposure as a writer.

We all know the importance of self-promotion, yet many of us are horrible at it. We’re conscientious in every other aspect of our craft. We outline, we carve out time to write, we edit and do everything else we can for our work to stand out. Except self-promote.

For some fortunate writers, self-promotion is as natural as breathing. For others (especially introverts like me) it’s a daunting task, but one that must be done, and done well.

The challenges of self-promotion

Nature

In her book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, Susan Cain writes,

To advance our careers, we’re expected to promote ourselves unabashedly. The authors whose books get published – once accepted as a reclusive breed – are now vetted by publicists to make sure they’re talk-show ready.”

If you’re a natural introvert, it’s probably not in your nature to draw attention to yourself. Sure, you’re able to take the spotlight when you absolutely have to, and you’re probably good at it when you do, but you’re much more comfortable working behind the scenes.

Nurture

Some of us are raised not to stand out, so we struggle to post that Facebook update about the great review we just got or tweet about our book being on sale.

I’m Jamaican, and contrary to what our reputation might be, Jamaicans are actually a fairly conservative people. Usain Bolt notwithstanding, we’re not raised to toot our own horns — it’s one of the byproducts of the Quaker influence on the island. Those of us who’ve grown up trying to fit a reserved ideal often have a hard time sharing and promoting our work.

Plain old fear of rejection

No one wants to put themselves out there and hear only crickets. We all, in some way, want the approval of others, so when we share our work and get a negative response — or worse, no response — it’s painful. So, we think, why do it all?

Worry about competition

Indie publishing has opened the door for many writers, and the competition to make yourself heard is intense. It’s hard and often discouraging work to differentiate yourself from all the other voices clamoring for attention. When you try, sometimes it leads to…

Burnout

Marketing and self-promotion is hard work even if you enjoy doing it. For those of us who don’t, just the thought of it can raise our stress levels, so we put it off. Then, when the time we’ve grudgingly carved out comes around, the task is so utterly unenjoyable that we burn out quickly and do the bare minimum.

So how can we make self-promotion easier?

1. Create realistic self-promotion goals

If you’re a serious writer, you’re no stranger to creating goals. From finishing a chapter to hitting a specific word count, setting realistic goals is second nature. So what makes our marketing goals different? I’ve spoken with writers just beginning their promotion efforts whose goals included:

• Add 100 Twitter followers in a week
• Increase sales 4 percent in a month
• Build and promote a Facebook fan page and get 50 likes per day

Strictly speaking, none of these goals are impossible, but for first steps, they’re pretty lofty. Instead, set more attainable goals, such as:

• Tweet your book/article/reviews twice per day
• Submit your book to three review sites per week

Once you achieve these goals, set the bar higher for the next round. Achieving modest goals gives us the confidence to attempt harder ones while avoiding the burnout we feel when our goals are overwhelming. (Click to tweet this idea.)

2. Keep what’s working, drop what’s not

Most social media platforms allow you to measure your engagement with your audience. Marketing and social media expert Gary Vaynerchuk writes in his book Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook,

Ignoring the deep analytics available for your Facebook fan page (and other platforms soon) is the equivalent of stepping into the ring without even having watched a video of your opponent during a fight.”

Even if you’re just beginning your promotion efforts, getting familiar with those tools will give you a huge leg up, allowing you to fine-tune your efforts. Is Instagram not working for you? Drop it. Is Twitter driving sales? Tweet more often.

Whatever the case, concentrating on the platforms that work for you is not only smart, but will keep you motivated as you reach more and more readers.

3. Don’t reinvent the wheel

Chances are your social media feeds are full of people giving great advice about self-promotion, so you don’t have to come up with a plan from scratch. Research how the experts are doing it, then use their tried and true techniques to jump-start your own marketing efforts.

4. Use available tools to your advantage

It’s strange, but sending a tweet or posting a Facebook update about my work in real time is intimidating. It’s much simpler to write my promotional tweets and set them to go out in advance.

To do this, I use Tweetdeck and Buffer. In addition to being solutions for my real-time phobia, they save time, as I can set my tweets and updates and forget them.

5. Shift your focus

In my 9-to-5 career, I’m a Director of a department for a NYC consulting firm, and I constantly present on behalf of my clients. I’ve spoken before senators, commissioners, council members and community groups (often hostile ones), and I’m never flustered. Why?

Because I treat what I do like the business that it is. My career, as important as it is, isn’t held as close to my heart as my writing.

Shifting your focus to seeing your books as commodities to be sold as opposed to the work you hold so near and dear to your heart may help to remove the personal aspect from the equation, thus making promotion easier.

How do you feel about self-promotion? What marketing strategies work for you? Tell us below in the comments.

Need to learn how to do social media better as a writer and author? Check out this free training that we’re offering with Self-Publishing School.

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This is an updated version of a story that was previously published. We update our posts as often as possible to ensure they’re useful for our readers.

The plot was going to take a lot of work, the research would be arduous, the character development would drain me — but the action scenes were going to be a breeze.

That was before I wrote one.

How to write fight scenes that satisfy your reader

The fight scene played out in my head and I wrote it happily, seeing each blow in my mind’s eye. I heard each hit as it landed, saw the blood and cracked bones, felt the impact of fists and feet and knees and elbows.

The fight, in my mind, was glorious. The fight I’d committed to paper, however, was a literal blow-by-blow account, and it was boring.

Discouraged, I trashed the first draft and did some further research. The second, third and fourth drafts have been much better.

Since then, I’ve learned a few things. Here are five tips that will help you learn how to write fight scenes.

1. Study how great authors do it

Mario Puzo, Lee Child, Karin Slaughter, John Connolly, Deon Meyer, Patricia Cornwell, Elmore Leonard, Louis L’Amour, Larry McMurtry and Robert B. Parker have all written novels chock full of bad characters doing bad things.

If you want to know how to write action, study these writers’ work. Some scenes feature intense, vivid descriptions; some have almost no description at all. Some action scenes are fast and deadly, some are longer and suspenseful.

Reading a variety of work will help inspire you to try a few different ways of writing action scenes, and ultimately find the one that works best for you and your story.

2. Use a style that fits with your novel’s tone and pacing

This doesn’t mean your actions scenes have to fit exactly in with the rest of your prose, but you should use a style that complements the rest of your work.

For example, in his Spenser novels, Robert B. Parker often goes into great detail about what his characters wear, but his actions scenes are short and deadly.

I hit Shelley under the jaw, and he stepped back and swung at me. I shrugged my shoulder up and took the punch on it. I hit Shelley four times, three lefts and a right in the face. He stumbled back, blood rushing from his nose.

— Robert B. Parker, Early Autumn

Conversely, Lee Child’s hero Jack Reacher is a giant of a man, capable of great violence but also imbued with a great capacity to reason. Reacher is the thinking man’s action hero, so Child’s fight scenes tend to be less choppy and more descriptive, fitting in well both with the character and the overall tone of the books.

Reacher half turned and half stepped back, toward his door, a fluid quarter circle, shoulders and all, and like he knew they would the two guys moved toward him, faster than he was moving, off-script and involuntary, ready to grab him. Reacher kept it going long enough to let their momentum establish, and then he whipped back through the reverse quarter circle toward them, by which time he was moving just as fast as they were, two hundred and fifty pounds about to collide head-on with four hundred, and he kept twisting and threw a long left hook at the left-hand guy.

— Lee Child, Never Go Back

The styles are different, but both are effective and entertaining.

3. Keep the story moving

Do you really need an action scene at that particular point in the story? We’ve all endured scenes where suddenly a fight occurs when there was no need for it: it didn’t advance the story in any way, and seemed as if it was included just for the fight’s sake.

Good writers know how to use action effectively to advance their story.

Pulitzer Prize winner Larry McMurtry includes the scene below in his novel Lonesome Dove. It’s a short and brutal scene, but it gives you great insight into the personality of his character, Woodrow Call. The scene also forces the reader to ask questions that enhance the enjoyment of the rest of the novel.

The six soldiers, watching, were too astonished to move. The small-seeming cowman kicked Dixon so hard in the face that it seemed his head would fly off. Then the man stood over Dixon, who spat out blood and teeth. When Dixon struggled to his feet, the smaller man immediately knocked him down again and then ground his face into the dirt with a boot.

“He’s gonna kill him,” one soldier said, his face going white. “He’s gonna kill Dixon.”

— Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove

Before you construct an action scene, ask yourself, does this scene belong here, or elsewhere? Does it belong in the story at all? Does it move the plot along? Will my readers learn anything about the character(s) because of it?

If not, cut it out — or move it to another place in your story.

4. Make sure it rings true

We’ve all read books and seen films where a bullet never comes close to the heroine or she recovers much too quickly from a terrible beating. If I made my hero too invincible, my audience would see right through me, but how to bring intense, bloody reality to the slings and arrows my hero was sure to endure?

I used to work as a bouncer, so I’m familiar with what violence looks and feels like and I tried to bring that to my action scenes. However, I was concerned that I wasn’t bringing enough reality to events that I hadn’t ever seen in person.

Here’s how to solve this conundrum: realize that most authors have not seen gunshot or stab wounds firsthand. I have never seen anyone get shot (thank goodness!), but there’s nothing stopping me from doing some research. South African novelist Deon Meyer shadows police officers and interviews forensics experts to help him create scenes like this one, from Dead Before Dying.

The shot thundered across the beach, an echo of the waves. The lead bullet broke his bottom right incisor, tore through his palate, just above his upper teeth, punched through the lower bone of his eye socket, and broke through the skin just in front of his left ear. He staggered back, then dropped down into a sitting position. Pain shot through his head. The blood dripped warmly down his cheek. His left eye wouldn’t focus.

But he was alive.

— Deon Meyer, Dead Before Dying

5. Consider the aftermath of the fight

Things happen as a result of violence. A fight scene should change a character or give the reader a deeper understanding of the character’s motivations, emotions and possible future actions.

Consider this passage from Mario Puzo’s Godfather saga, just after Sonny Corleone’s assassination:

Don Corleone was staring at the table. “I want you to use all your powers, all your skill, as you love me,” he said. “I do not wish for his mother to see him as he is.” He went to the table and drew down the gray blanket. Amerigo Bonasera against all his will, against all his years of training and experience, let out a gasp of horror. On the embalming table was the bullet-smashed face of Sonny Corleone. The left eye drowned in blood had a star fracture in its lens. The bridge of his nose and left cheekbone were hammered into pulp.

For one fraction of a second the Don put out his hand to support himself against Bonasera’s body.

“See how they have massacred my son, he said.”

— Mario Puzo, The Godfather

Don Vito Corleone, a man used to violence, is visibly moved and irrevocably changed by his son’s brutal slaying. Shortly thereafter, the Don steps down and his youngest son, Michael, rises to power. This one scene initiates a series of calculated events that permanently alter (and end) the lives of almost every character in Puzo’s novel.

Puzo makes his action scenes intense and exciting, but he also knows that the violence comes at a steep cost and isn’t shy about making his characters pay the price for their brutal ways. They deal with their physical and emotional pain in ways that are entertaining to read and help to advance the narrative.

In the same way, as you create your exciting action scene, plan the aftermath of the violence. The action must propel your story forward and have consequences for your characters, whether immediately or down the road.

For more information on how to write a fight scene, check out Joanna Penn’s free interview with martial artist and author Alan Baxter, or Baxter’s book Write the Fight Right.

This is an updated version of a story that was previously published. We update our posts as often as possible to ensure they’re useful for our readers.

Photo via Dusan Petkovic/ Shutterstock 

“Get it out there,” she said.

“It needs to be seen,” she said.

“Publish it on Amazon,” she said.

So last year we embarked on our self-publishing journey, and soon the book was ready and uploaded to Amazon and ready to set the world on fire.

After initial sales from friends, family, and well-wishers, Willows settled into a groove. I’ve had more sales than I thought I would, and on my free days the book was downloaded more than 2,000 times and earned a few good reviews. I wasn’t quite in Lee Child or Stephen King territory just yet, but for my first effort I considered it an OK start.

All in all, I’ve loved my first foray into self-publishing. Despite my complaints and some infuriating moments (like MS Word somehow reversing all my changes and auto correct reversing my edits and changing a character’s name mid-novel), I’ve enjoyed it.

However, the thing I looked forward to, more than anything, was my first review. After all, I wanted what all writers want: to know if I’m any good. I needed to know if I was just fooling myself with this writing jazz. Should I chuck the whole thing? Would people enjoy my work? We would see.

When those first reviews start trickling in

I expected some initial good reviews. Family and friends eager to support you will give you five-star reviews and say things that make you sound like the next big literary star. I truly appreciated these, but the reviews I treasured the most were the ones from complete strangers, who gave honest, constructive criticism.

So, when I got my first one star review, I was shocked! I reread it a few times to make sure I’d read it right.

The reviewer had downloaded my book on a free day, read it (I assume) and was not thrilled. I was flabbergasted. Willows was my first novel; I knew I would be no danger to the authors on the bestseller list, but I never expected that kind of review.

I laughed it off and chalked it up to someone who didn’t give the book a chance or maybe didn’t care for the genre, and resolved to ignore it. Twenty minutes later… okay, two minutes later — when I was supposed to be writing — I read the bad review again.

Does one bad apple spoil the whole bunch?

Then, just like we do in many other areas of life, I totally disregarded the sincere encouragement and kind words I’d received from friends, family and complete strangers and concentrated on my one bad review.

Was there something I could have done to make the book better? I went back to the manuscript and pored over it to see if there was something I missed, or if there were there any edits I could have made to win this lone reviewer over.

I tried to return to writing but the review was on my mind. It buzzed around my head like flies at a picnic, distracting me from my work.

Too distracted and annoyed to write, I picked up my favorite book about writing, Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. I opened the book and my eye fell on this quote:

“You can’t please all of the readers all of the time; you can’t please even some of the readers all of the time, but you really ought to try to please at least some of the readers some of the time.”

That is exactly what I tried to do: please some of the readers. I had tried my best, and it pleased some of the readers. Reading King’s quote took me out of my bad review funk and focused my attention on where it should be: on my work.

Dealing with a negative review

If you’re a writer, especially a newbie, and you’ve received a bad Amazon review, here are my three steps to deal with it:

1. Ignore it

2. Ignore it

3. Use it as motivation to make your next article or manuscript even better

Thanks, Ms. One Star Reviewer, for your message. I’ve gotten you out of my system and used your words as inspiration. I hope I don’t ever encounter you again, but if (when) I do, I’ll know how to handle you.

Have you ever dealt with a negative review? How did you respond?