How To Promote Yourself Shamelessly As A Writer
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You’ve spent months or years meticulously honing your craft as a writer. Your manuscript is polished. Your website is pristine. Now comes the hard part — letting the world know you exist.
Self-promotion may sound distasteful. Doesn’t stellar writing speak for itself?
Yet in today’s noisy environment, an unwillingness to share your accomplishments shrinks your reach exponentially.
It’s like having light but keeping it under a bushel — only you know you have it.
Promotion is the necessary bridge between your work and the audiences meant to benefit from it.
Here’s how to get past common reservations, shamelessly share your talents, and get your writing in front of those eager to receive it.
1. Examine Your Reluctance
What specifically makes you hesitate to promote your work?
The most common reasons are:
- Fear of appearing arrogant
- Discomfort drawing attention
- Cultural norms against self-praise
- Imposter syndrome
- Lack of confidence
- Distaste for marketing
- Perfectionism
Look within to identify your unique barriers, then challenge whether they serve you.
Consider how many potential readers you lose by downplaying your capabilities.
Your gifts deserve to be shared widely, not minimized out of discomfort.
2. Reframe Self-Promotion as a Service
Rather than viewing self-promotion as a necessary evil, reframe it as an act of service.
In sharing your work, you provide value to those who need it — you are showing you care and helping those you are designed to help.
You shine a light on issues that matter. Any stigma fades when the promotion is simply spreading useful ideas.
Keep the focus on how you help others, not puffing yourself up.
Enable your writing to create change. That intent makes authentic promotion feel natural, not icky.
3. Match Your Message to Your Audience
A mistake writers make is promoting generally to no one in particular. Better results come from targeting promotion to niche communities and people who will care.
Study subcultures and demographics where your work resonates. Then craft messaging, media pitches, and social media content tailored specifically for them. Cater to their preferences, challenges, and desires.
Niche-specific promotion converts audiences into loyal fans.
For example, a financial blogger may target promotion to retirees, teachers, new parents, debt-ridden grads, etc. based on article topics.
4. Establish Yourself as an Authority
Position yourself as an industry expert by consistently providing value for free. Guest posts on popular blogs or publications. Get quoted in media stories. Share advice on forums. Offer tips on social media.
This showcases your knowledge while directing traffic back to your website and portfolio.
Build trust and credibility over time. Eventually, readers will crave your unique perspective.
5. Partner With Influencers
A great self-promotion tactic is collaborating with industry influencers. Offer to create co-branded content or be interviewed for their podcast or video channel.
Joint promotion expands your reach exponentially.
Choose partners with engaged but adjacent audiences.
For example, a fiction writer could partner with book review blogs or author coaches. This taps new networks primed to become fans.
6. Network Authentically
While some see networking as transactional, prioritize genuine relationships and community.
Comment on peers’ work. Share their content. Offer encouragement.
This builds goodwill that often leads to natural referrals and collaborations. Fellow writers will enthusiastically promote someone who shows support first.
Remember the golden rule — do unto others what you want them to do unto you.
7. Don’t Let Perfectionism Delay
Writers often obsess over getting every minor detail perfect before sharing their work or “officially” promoting it.
But done is better than perfect.
Start putting yourself out there before all boxes are checked.
Polish your best content now. Launch your website in beta mode. Share work-in-progress. Imperfect promotion is better than none at all. You can refine the details later.
Wrapping Up
Promoting yourself shouldn’t be a chore saved for launch day. Normalize it and build it into your routine.
Dedicate 15 minutes each morning to outreach and social media. Set reminders to share new content on a schedule. Promoting incrementally avoids agonizing over marketing pushes.
While self-promotion may feel awkward at first, making an impact requires getting seen by those you can help.
Filter tactics through your values. Stay authentic. But recognize that done well, shameless promotion provides a bridge enabling your gifts to reach more people and change lives.
Self-promotion is just one piece of the successful writer puzzle. If you want to have someone walk you through the entire journey, you may want to consider my 3-month Become a PRO Writer program. For more info, book a free no-presure 15-minute clarity call with me.
I hope this helps you. If it did, be sure to clap me a thousand times (joking, a few tens would do), leave me a comment (it will encourage me a lot — smiles), and share this with someone you know needs it (sharing is caring).
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