Promoting Myself as an Author

I have written several books. Don't go getting all "impressed" on me. I know it sounds like a big deal, but, really, it isn't. What I have is a few folders on my PC (and hopefully some backups, somewhere!!!) with novel-length rough drafts in them.

Anyway, I have managed to get one of these books edited and ready to submit for publishing. I don't, currently, have any intentions of self-publishing. However, in the course of my research, I have discovered that it is expected that a novelist have a social media presence, whether self-publishing or not.

I confess, I hate this idea.

I do not want to promote myself. I want to write books and short stories, and be paid to do it.

But, it's looking like I'm stuck in the old "Love and Marriage" conundrum; I can't have one without the other.

So, I gotta do it.

In the past, my biggest dissuasion to self-promotion has been that I've felt like a "phony" calling myself a writer, and rightfully so. After all, to be honest, to be perfectly, disgustingly, frank, bare and raw...

I've never wanted to work at writing.

See that bold and underlined word, there? The four-letter one? Yeah. When I start to think about turning writing into work, I start to feel all Dobie Gillis' Maynard G. Krebs about the whole thing.

I confess, I have been lazy about my writing. It is quite near physically painful to write that, but it is true. My whole life, I've been a lazy writer. At the ripe ole age of (not gonna tell ya), I've come to realize that, if I am ever going to be taken seriously, I have to take my writing seriously.

But, for all these years, I really, honestly, did not think I could take my writing more seriously. I mean, do I really love writing, after all? Do I love it enough to scoop the monkey poop?

Okay, that last bit deserves a bit of explanation. You see, my Daddy always told me that, no matter what career choice I made, there was gonna be a "downside".

"Everyone wants to work with the cute little monkeys at the zoo," he told me, "but not everyone still wants that job once they realize there's monkey poop to shovel. Every job has its own 'monkey poop'. You've got to find a career you love enough to put up with the not-so-fun parts."

And that, I have determined, is what getting through the (nightmare) editing process of this first book has proven to me - I do actually have it in me to take the profession of writing seriously. I do have the "stick-to-it-ive-ness" it takes to get a piece from "rough draft" to "as polished as I'm gonna be able to get it".

I guess I do like the monkey-poop shoveling part of writing. Or, at least, I can hold my nose through it.

If I was able to get one of those old manuscripts dusted off and spiffed up, surely I can do it again... and again...

It's almost like I finally believe I can do it.

To make a long story longer, this post is to introduce  my new Author's presence which currently consists of a WordPress Blog and a woefully under-utilized Twitter account.

I'd love to have you follow my tweets and read my Slow Blog. Also, it'd be great to see a few more of you follow this here old blog (which, as it turns out, is also a Slow Blog. Who knew?).

Do any of y'all have a career that requires a social media presence?

(wow, did I just refer to writing as my "career"? gulp.)