I fully admit that I am terrible at marketing my books. I do marketing on a one-to-one or one-to-few basis: I either talk to individuals, or I make announcements at munches.

Beyond that, what else can I do? I post on Twitter. I post on Fetlife. I go to events and sell books.

I have a full-time day job. I can’t spend all day marketing myself. And I certainly can’t afford a marketing person. Plus, as I’ve said before, self-promotion can be self-defeating. I’ve also observed that working on marketing tasks takes away from the desire to actually write new fiction, because — for lack of a better metaphor — I’m already tiring out those same muscles and there’s only so much they can do before they stop working.

I remember back in the day people used to do blog tours, or trade interviews, or even trade book reviews, but I haven’t seen any of that lately. Maybe I’m just missing it. I don’t know.

But what I do know is this: you can’t just throw a book out into the universe and hope people read it, not unless you’re a huge-name author or you have some sort of scoop about a political figure that you could have revealed while they were in office to actually make some positive changes but instead chose to sit on it for two years and then publish it as a tell-all*.

* Can you tell how pissed off I am at journalists right now? And have been for years?

I am neither of those things. I’m just a guy, sitting at a desk, writing books, hoping people will read them and then tell me how they felt or what they thought. I’m not even in it for the money; although I’d certainly like more sales, the only real monetary goal I have is making enough to cover convention/spanking party expenses.

So, y’know… if you want to help out, tweet or retweet something of mine. Share it on Fetlife or on your blog or Instagram or Snapchat or (throws up in mouth a little) Tiktok. Rate or review something you read.

I mean, I know you won’t, but I can certainly hope, right?

(Yes, I’ve been demoralized lately. Can you tell?)