Promotional Rescue

The launch of Jackrabbit has been a hell of an interesting ride, so far. It’s been an absolute thrill seeing something that went from a vague idea five years ago to an actual physical book that I can hold in my hand and use to swat flies. I can remember back twenty years ago, wanting to be a novelist but resenting the hell out of the fact that I had to actually write something. My goal, as I saw it then, was to have my own ISBN number. And now I do – 978-1-7332699-0-2. I just didn’t think I’d have to pay for it myself.

But I’ve already whined about that, so I’ll whine about something else.

To wit: promoting the book. This is something that is proving to be really challenging. I am decidedly NOT good with sales and marketing. At one point, I had my own one-man architecture and consulting business. I managed to limp it along for nearly two years, largely on the basis of connections I had in the local AEC industry and the largess and patience of my wonderful wife. But I hated, absolutely hated, having to drum up business and make cold calls. I figured that was not going to be a good situation for a one-person firm, so I eventually went back and got another “real” job. Also, I needed the health insurance.

So now I am back in the familiar but uncomfortable place of having to promote my own book. I knew that I was going to be in for it when I decided to self-publish (a topic for another post), but thinking about having to do it some time in the future, and actually having to do it NOW are two different beasties. But, here I am again.

Now that I’ve got the self-publishing end of things squared away, I’m focusing my attention on promoting the book, and doing a little online research about the best way to go about doing it. One of the first things I read is that the author needs to begin promoting the book six months before the publication date. WTF?! Back then, I was still writing the bastard; I had no time to think about promoting it. Hell, I have a full-time job and a wife and something akin to a life – there’s only so much more I can do on top of maintaining my so-called life and finishing a manuscript.

Then there’s the fact that nearly all self-publishing promotion involves social media. I don’t much cotton to social media, but I suppose I’ll have to live with it. I knew what I was getting into – but that doesn’t mean that I’m going to deal with it gracefully. Besides, from what I understand, even authors who managed to get their books published are now expected to shoulder a lot of the promotional activities. They need a “platform” – which I guess is what you are reading now.

So, here I go promoting again. I can be thankful for a number of things, not the least of which is that I live in Portland, which has self-published authors out the wazoo. So I have friends and acquaintances who have been down this road before and can offer useful advice. Most important, however, is that I have something that I didn’t really have when I was making those cold calls for my business, and that is faith in the product. This is a good book. I’m proud of what I’ve written, and I’m thankful that I hooked up with a good editor to make ti readable, and a good cover artist to encourage people to give it a try.

Here it goes…