I received, via Facebook, a comment from a writer friend of mine
about a blog post I did yesterday about business
cards for writers, and the day before about attending
book fairs and other literary
events. He has been writing for a while
longer than I have, and his comment was about how times have changed.
“…writers--especially poets and literary fiction writers never self-promoted,” he wrote. “It was seen as bad form. Today it is considered dumb if one doesn't self-promote.”
First of all, let me say that I although I do self-promote, and a lot of writers do, I try to stay away from promoting by saying, “Look how great I am, and look how great my novel is.” The message I try to send is, “I really like expressing myself through writing and storytelling, and look at what I learn along the way.”
In the end, the goal is the same as if I were more blatantly self-promoting. I’m am trying to convince people that if my blog has value, then so will my novel (when the damn thing gets finished). There is a philosophy in sales that a good salesperson does not promote their product or service. What they promote is a solution to a problem. I think I promote the same thing through my blog, and maybe eventually through the novel.
My friend is correct, however—writers promote themselves much more than they ever did before. I think we do that for several reasons.
In no specific order of importance, here are some of those reasons. Notice I said some. This is not an exhaustive list. There are many more reasons out there that have not occurred to me.
The Industry Changed—In a post on Behler Blog, Lynn Price once referred to the “Great Publishing Implosion of 2008-9.” The industry has dramatically changed. The reasons for those changes and that implosion have been brewing for a while, but the tipping point came, as Lynn notes, in 2008 and 2009 when the recession forced everyone to face facts. The publishing industry cut back, laid off, and increasing put their eggs into fewer and fewer baskets (read novelists with a proven track record). First time novelists found it harder and harder to get their words in print though the traditional channels.
Self-Publishing—Self-publishing has been happening for as long as there have been printing presses. Publishers also came along, too, and eventually their existence made the cost of entry much higher, unless you were content to publish a book or novel that sold three copies, and the rest languished in your garage or basement. The market flattened out considerably, however, with the rise of e-readers and self-publishing technology. Anyone can do it for little or no investment. You only have to know your way around Amazon and some software available online at little or no cost.
Social Media—The final piece of this formula came in the form of social media. First there was email, then came Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, texting… you name it. Added to this, everyone carries a computer in their pocket that operates all this technology. It is called a cell phone, and there are more than 100 million of them in the U.S. alone. Now you can communicate with anyone in the world, as often as you want, and it doesn’t cost a thing. Thanks to technology, you can even read a novel on your cell phone
Social media has, to some extent, replaced the agent. One of the roles an agent serves is to be a third party who can rant and rave about how bitchen and groovy their client is. They can do it much better than if you were sitting across the table from the publisher. Social media allows you to now do this yourself, and if you are smart about it, you can do it in ways that are not so self-serving.
These three conditions created the perfect storm for writers that now self-promote. 1) You have a means of publishing that was difficult to achieve in the first place; now it is almost impossible. 2) The technology to allow you to self-publish became more accessible, and, more importantly, far less expensive. Finally, 3) Writers realized that self-publishing means self-promoting. A publisher does the promotion for you. Now you have to do it yourself. Social media give you the tools to do it.
If you think there are other forces in the industry that contribute to this new trend of writers who self-promote, let me know. Comment to this blog, or send me a message via Facebook for any of the other social media.
By the way, I am also giving you homework today. Read this article by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman and pay particular attention to what he says about the “super-empowered individual.” Tomorrow we will discuss the super-empowered writer.
See ya’ later
WhatIfYouCouldNotFail.com by Tim Sunderland is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Photo by Tomwsulcer (Own work) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons
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