I wish I knew where the term “shameless self promotion” first came from. I think I know why it caught on. One of the big never-ending topics for writers is how to promote your work, how to toot your own horn. At the same time, most of us live in a culture that values modesty and humility. How many of us automatically respond to compliments with something along the lines of, “Oh, it’s nothing, really.” (Hard-core costumers have a really hard time with this. You tell them how great their costume is, and they’ll start showing you the uneven seams and the shortcuts they took on them hem, mistakes no one would notice if they didn’t insist on pointing them out.) Some of us are overcoming a lot of social conditioning to be able to hold up our books and say, “Hey! Look here! Look what I did!” So we put the “shameless” in front “self promotion” to acknowledge that discomfort.
The easy way to get around that discomfort is to realize that a lot of self promotion is really just dispensing information. Pretty much the first question anyone asks when they find out you’re a writer is, “What do you write?” I’ve made up business cards with my name, website, and cover of one of my books printed on them to hand out. Most people are grateful to get one of these little reminders — it tells them exactly what they want to know and they don’t have to write anything down. But I’ll confess, I’ve been doing this for four years and it still feels weird giving out the cards and saying, “Yes, that’s me, look what I did!”
Lots of our readers don’t live on the internet, aren’t keyed into the book world, haven’t memorized the release date of our next books, and are only likely to think of it when the information is placed in front of them. They’re happy to get the reminders, the websites, the blog posts, and so on. There’s nothing shameless about providing that information — especially because you can’t count on anyone else doing it for you.
It’s possible to take the promotion thing too far. If all you talk about is your books, if all you blog about is your next book, if you judge all of your online or even real-world relationships by how they’ll help you sell books, you may have a problem. I go to a lot of science fiction conventions, where there’s a huge backlash right now against the “tower of books.” This is what happens when an author is on a panel and piles up copies of all their books and cover flats at the front of the table, so all the audience can see is their books. Often, this writer will also spend all their time on the panel discussing his or her own work. Authors who do this have forgotten that the primary purpose of the panel discussion is not, in fact, to allow them to pimp their work. People go to the panel to be entertained and informed, and the panelist’s job is to entertain and inform them. If the audience likes your contribution to the discussion, chances are they’ll check out your books. Panel discussions are a great way to connect with potential readers, and I encourage authors to participate in them. But if all you can do is talk about you, you’ll likely piss off the audience and they’ll avoid you.
I watch what other writers do, how other writers promote themselves, to help me decide what to do about promoting my own books. If they do something I like, I remember that. If they do something I don’t like, I remember that, too. I pay attention to what works on me as a reader. For example, in all my years of going to conventions, bookstores, events, etc, I’ve only ever bought the book advertised on a bookmark I picked up once. And it wasn’t because of the bookmark, it was because I went to the author’s reading and really liked what I heard. The bookmark was just to remind me that I wanted to try this book. So, I haven’t ever handed out bookmarks, which is almost heretical. Everybody does bookmarks. But I have limited funds and resources, and I decided to do other things with them. I hand out flyers and business cards, because I make them myself and can adapt them to any book or event without a huge outlay.
I have something else to say about shameless self promotion: there’s a reason I’m writing about this topic this week. Two of them, actually.
My latest book, Kitty and the Dead Man’s Hand, was officially released yesterday. There, how was that for subtly dispensing information?
And it’s my birthday today. I just had to say it, shamelessly. 
