Help with Obnoxious Self-Promotion · 21 September 2024
I am not much for obnoxious self-promotion. So I am getting some help.
Self-promotion is something that I am loathe to do. It goes against my nature. Oh sure, I can do the false bravado and bragging thing with my family and friends, but for the most part, I do not like to talk about myself or think too highly of myself. After all, once I start to do that, I get knocked right back down. My family and friends see to that.
(I do wonder if I might have been somewhat of a braggart back in the day. Maybe that is why people like to pick on me even if they have only met me moments ago. I have written a time or two about that phenomenon. So it is already another story.)
The thing about self-promotion though is that it is something you need to do if you want to sell books. You need to tell people about the books that you have written and that are out there for people to buy. I am getting better at telling people about my books, but not that much better. So I thought I would bring in some expert help.
I bought a service to help me with my self-promotion. Mostly with my social media promotions. The service is called Author Social Assistant. And even though I have barely started using it at the time of this writing, it is pretty cool.
The cool thing about Author Social Assistant is that it makes social media posting easy. Oh sure, I already post on X (the social media platform formerly known as Twitter) six days a week. I do a couple six-word stories. But that is just following a prompt. One is a picture prompt. The other (which is not every day) is usually just a word prompt. I love to do them. They are like a kick starter for my morning writing. Not that I really need to stir up the creative juices most days. But they are still fun.
Author Social Assistant is pretty simple to use. I just upload my book cover and a blurb for my book. I can also upload a logo. (The logo thing does not seem to work that well, but that is okay.) Then, I get a calendar with blog posts that I can make. It is a six day cycle of laugh, quote, laugh, quote, ask, promote. I am not sure if it will work, but I do like the notion that I do not need to promote my book(s) every day. Once every six days is plenty. Which is what the provider of my posts is saying is a good cycle. The nice thing is that they come up with the things to say and the pictures (or videos) to go with them. And I can edit those pictures and words as I see fit.
But that is just the thing. I got the service so that I do not need to think of pithy sayings or search for great memes that fit my style or my books. The service does all that. And I just paid a one-time membership fee to get help posting and promoting. Pretty cool.
The coolest thing though is not that I get the humorous sayings or the cool memes or the quotes or even the questions to ask. The coolest thing is that some of the memes and some of the pictures and videos have my book cover in them! It is the coolest thing to have my book cover in somebody’s hand or falling from the sky or somehow involved in the picture. It is subtle and sublime. Okay. Maybe not so subtle. And maybe not at all sublime. But it is so cool!
(By the way. I doubt that I will ever write a blog post or a book or compose a song that anybody would call sublime, but that is okay. I am happy to not have something cause great admiration or be awe-inspiring. Of course, I need people to enjoy my creations before anybody might even consider that they might be sublime.)
I hope that my new social media campaign works to sell a couple books here and there. After all, that is why I got the service. But it does not really matter that much. What matters is that I do not need to be too obnoxious or think too hard to get a few pictures of my books and a promotion a week out on social media. And more importantly, I do not need to get much better at obnoxious self-promotion.
[By the way, I did not get a promotion fee or anything for creating and posting this piece. But I would surely accept one.]
© 2024 Michael T. Miyoshi
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