How to Self-Promote Your Book Without Sounding Like an Egotistical Ass

Marketing. *shudder*

To Anxious Authors, the very idea of marketing is a dry-heaving inducing concept. Many of us don’t even like going outside for fear of running into people (the horror!), so the thought of showing the world our creations, no matter how proud we are of them, makes us a little…anxious, should we say?

For me, the biggest fear when it comes to self-promoting my book is that I’m going to come across as arrogant. I don’t like getting too big for my boots or look like I’m acting above my station, it’s just not something an introvert enjoys. The problem is, self-promoting only works if you’ve got a modicum of confidence in what you’ve created.

So, here’s the million dollar question: how do we strike the balance between effectively self-promoting our books and staying humble? Here’s a few tips!

 

 

1. Recognise your book’s value.

Half the battle when Anxious Authors self-promote is fearing that we might be exaggerating. What if my book isn’t amazing but we just said it is? What if someone calls me out on it and tells everyone it’s rubbish?

We can address this fear by understanding exactly what our books give to our audiences and promoting those aspects. Sure, one of our beta-readers said they thought the book was amazing but that’s more a matter of opinion and if we say it, the public at large are less likely to believe us. Who’s going to promote their book by saying it’s rubbish? No-one.

So ask yourself and your beta-readers other questions about your book. Is it entertaining? Are there heart-stopping moments? Is it action-packed? Ask yourself and others these questions and understand what your book objectively offers its readers. With a bit of delving, you will find descriptive words that are less braggy but are also what readers are looking for in the books they read.

Photo by Daria Shevtsova from Pexels

 

 

2. Use graphics.

Graphics are a must to advertise books and for Anxious Authors, they are a great tool. It’s much harder to look like you’re bragging when using pictures instead of words. When you’re self-promoting your books you will still need to use words but if you’re using graphics in addition (and not just the buy links previews) then you can get away with using fewer of them.

Use your book cover, maybe a beautiful stock photo and some genre-appropriate fonts and put together an attention-grabbing graphic. Heck, maybe even put a quote from a five-star review up there and let other people’s words do the talking for you.

The best DIY graphics software I’ve come across so far are Canva and Bookbrush (I’ve been using the latter a lot lately). So have a look, get stuck in and make something beautiful!

Photo by Vojetch Okenka on Pexels.

 

 

3. Keep it short.

Long ad copies are not a great idea. People scrolling through Facebook aren’t going to stop and read your giant promotion if they don’t already know your work. But better yet for us Anxious Authors, the shorter our promotions are, the less likely it is that people will feel we are ramming our books down their throats.

Use some attention-grabbing keywords, maybe a few cool emojis and keep the hashtags to a minimum (unless you’re on Instagram where that stuff’s just normal). Keeping things short and sweet means people aren’t going to get bored reading it and scroll on and helps create an air of mystery that will hopefully entice your potential reader to want to find out more and click your links.

The shorter your ad copy, the less we will feel like we are trying to force someone into buying our books!

Photo by Engin Akyurt on Pexels.

Thanks for reading!