If you’ve been a fan of Rebecca Luella Miller’s blog “A Christian Worldview of Fiction” and visited her as a guest on one of my “Saturday Sample . . .” features, or if you’ve read any of Susan Meissner’s novels* or visited her input over at “We CAN! promote our books”, you know that neither of these women are comfortable with self promotion. Well, add me to that list.
Ask me about different authors, and I’ll give you rave reviews for some and kind “declines” of others, but I love to talk about their writing, their books. I’ve gained a pretty good idea of what my friends like to read, so it’s easy to recommend to them certain novels I’ve read, and some of them search my “library” for their latest fiction venture. It’s a good thing when people come to trust your opinion—and even want to hear it!
But . . . blowing my own horn and heralding my own “accomplishments”. Yuck.
Soooo . . . what does that mean? It means that I absolutely have to depend on God to do the “promotion”. If you ask me about my novels, I can tell you all about the characters, their stories, and get excited about them because I honestly like them. The reason I like them so much, though, is because the Lord dropped them into my heart, gave me the characters and took them to places I would’ve never dreamed up. I’m tellin’ ya they just came and went at will, and it was thoroughly exciting to write these stories because it was as much of an adventure for me as it was for the mind-of-their-own characters.
Seriously, I’ve read a lot about marketing books. And it’s a whole lot easier to market someone else’s work than it is my own. Of course one of the reasons for that is because my book is self-published. And we all know what a “black mark” that can be.
Some authors are natural promoters. It’s just in them to do it. One of the best is Karen Kingsbury. People love her as an author and as a person. She has written stories that resonate with a huge audience, and her outgoing, caring, and innovative personality acts as a conduit for selling her books. No one works any harder at it than Tricia Goyer, Mary DeMuth, or Susie Larson. There are a number of others who handle it well and remain remarkably humble in the process.
The one thing that is puzzling to me about this marketing gig is that there are professionals in this book biz who can’t get it right, yet the amateurs are expected to contribute viable ideas and resources to promote their own books. We’ve discussed here and elsewhere in the blogosphere how some Christian men’s fiction is mostly unsuccessfully marketed, and there are some virtually unknown but truly gifted men who write it. Why is that?
Anyway, Becky (aka Rebecca Luella Miller) has suggested we should be praying for each other and celebrating each other’s accomplishments, mentioning each other’s writing(s) which she has done on her blog, and for that matter Susan Meissner has promoted some of her favorite authors on her blog “Edgewise”. That was the objective of the Saturday Samples on this blog—to promote those writers who have yet to be published. Generating interest in the “lesser known(s)” is a blessing to do. Encouraging those who take the craft seriously and are working at it is important. Not everyone will get to be published in the traditional sense, but it seems there are still a lot of writers out there who are worth reading. So why not draw attention to them?
It sure beats pointing all the arrows back to oneself.
Father, you know how I am. You’ve given me a lot of boldness, yet I can’t talk up my stuff. I can talk about it and give you all the credit for anything of value, but that’s it. Guide me, Lord. Teach me what you want me to know because the only One I can really all-out promote is you. Lord, I trust in you. Please make sure I don’t try to lean on my own understanding. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.
*Visit an interview with Susan Meissner and see the list of books she’s written in the archives (04/18/07).