Blatant Self-Poisoning

ROSEMARY: Last weekend Sue Ann Jaffarian and I had a terrific time in Alabama - first at Murder in the Magic City and then at Murder on the Menu - two terrific events which we both heartily recommend and which benefit the Homewood and Wetumpka AL libraries.

In our down time - when we weren't yakking about the Super Bowl, the snow and upcoming events we got to talking about a subject that's never far from any writer's thoughts - promotion.

Sue Ann had us in stitches and I asked her if it was okay to reprint this piece she wrote on a new and virulent form of BSP.


SUE ANN: Recently I was having a meal with a friend – another author. As always, our conversation turned to discussing books we’d read, those we were reading and those added to our To Be Read Pile. When I mentioned a book I’d recently picked up, she groaned.

“I wanted to read that book,” she said, “but if I see one more word about it or even the cover again, I’ll vomit.”

Not exactly the response the author of that book was going for, I’m sure.

What went wrong? Why did my friend go from dying to read that particular book to considering it a leper?

The answer: Too much blatant self promotion.

For any newbies out there, blatant self promotion or “BSP” as it is fondly and not-so-fondly referred to in the writing community, is when an author personally pushes his or her own book. It’s not the promotional campaign the publisher puts in motion.

Sadly, I couldn’t disagree with my friend. I’d seen the author’s personal promotional campaign myself. If you spent any time on the Internet, it was impossible to miss. Blogs, digests, social networking – you name it, the author was there hawking the book over and over like a cure for cancer. I’d read so much about it, at times I felt I’d already read the book itself. Which leads me to wonder if, like my friend, I should even bother.

BSP – every author does it. We do it every time we open our mouths or type anything about our own books. What’s more, every author MUST do it. There’s no getting around it.

Lack of sales can translate into lack of future contracts. Something every author is keenly aware of and fears. We can’t be shy or overly humble about promoting our own books. If we don’t believe in them, how can we expect readers to plop down their hard earned money for them, especially in such a shaky economy. We have to walk the walk and talk the talk when it comes to having confidence in our own work.


But when does blatant self promotion become blatant self poisoning? When do we cross the line from helping ourselves to hurting, and possibly even killing, ourselves in front of readers? What’s the cutoff, the edge of the cliff, between having faith in your book and shoving it down people’s throats until they back away in horror? When does confident PR start looking like an act of desperation?

I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I am curious and a bit worried.

You see, my book, Ghost in the Polka Dot Bikini, the 2nd installment in the Ghost of Granny Apples mystery series, was just released (there, I got in my own BSP), and I sure don’t want to turn folks off.

ROSEMARY: It's a fine line. And the rest of us joked about it all weekend - starting every other sentence with.. "in my first book XXXX, available from XXX and on Kindle for only XXX."

What do the rest of you think?

Visit Sue Ann at www.sueannjaffarian.com