Every week I get questions like this: “I don’t have a book out yet [or my first book came out last year], but do you think I need to have a website, a blog, a newsletter, be on Facebook and LinkedIn and Goodreads, and also tweet on Twitter daily? Is all this self-promotion necessary?”

I wish I knew!

A Voice of Reason

If you believe everything you read that “they say,” you might think you needed to do all that self-promotion. However, I’m inclined to think James Scott Bell in his book The Art of War for Writers is closer to the mark.  In talking about self-promotion, he said, “The more anxious you are about forcing success through self-promotional effort, the less creative energy you have for the writing itself.”

Why? “Because,” Bell says, “the most important promotional tool you have is your best book. Period.”

Creating that “best book” of which you’re capable takes hours and hours of writing and revising, learning new skills, honing your craft, your heart and soul, your blood, sweat and tears. He cautions writers not to dilute their strengths by obsessing over promotion. (Isn’t that a breath of fresh air?)

Good, Better, Best

Bell gives an interesting list of the “ten best forms of self-promotion.” Only one item on the list deals with the Internet. He simply calls #4 on the list your “web presence.” Guess what SIX of the items on the list are. Your book. He says that a good book–and the word of mouth it generates–will do more for your sales than all the Internet marketing efforts put together. That has been my experience personally, but it’s rare to find such a successful author say so. Rare and refreshing!

Concerning the questions I receive weekly about Internet promotion: I think I’m going to start quoting Bell’s book from now on. His simple guideline for “how much” self-promotion to do is this:

“Do what you can without (a) taking away from the quality of your writing time; (b) taking away from the quality of personal relationships, and (c) taking on debt.”

Now that’s food for a lot of thought.

I sat down last night to finally go through a stack of magazines and other periodicals that had accumulated. I looked forward to flipping leisurely through the pages, stopping when a title caught my eye.

So why was I fuming within thirty seconds? All that infernal marketing done with post card-type inserts stuck inside. I hate them! Instead of the pages fluttering nicely, they jerk by in clumps unless you take the time first to go through and yank the ads out. I ripped out NINE such inserts in one magazine alone. The stack of worthless garbage littered the floor. It makes me want to boycott their products–not buy them.

Viral Marketing?

Hawking wares–telling people about your product repeatedly–never works on me. I’m affected the same way by email campaigns from people I don’t know in newsletters I didn’t sign up for.

I know that when a new book comes out, we’re supposed to blitz people with “see my new book!” and “watch my new trailer!” and “join me for a free teleseminar!” and “view my podcast!” and “meet the author!” and “read my guest blog tour!” and “read my starred (Amazon) review!” Maybe it works for other people, but I just end up feeling nagged and put off by this after a while.

Where’s the Balance?

I know you need to market, and I like to hear good publishing news as much as the next author. It’s important to be willing to help with marketing your books in this publishing day and age. But there’s a big difference between a couple of announcements and ten blasts. You don’t want to cross over from intriguing a buyer into annoying him.

How do you decide where to draw the line? I very much suspect it’s a personal–and personality–thing. How do YOU feel about it?