The Promotional Life

I’m always at a loss as to what to do around genre award season.

Everyone’s either talking about books I have no real intentions of reading, votes I have no real intentions on thinking too deeply about and, as always, speeches on the state of the genre that I have no real intentions on listening to if there is something slightly more interesting going on.

Like cake.

But one aspect of award season I do make a rather guilty point of keeping up on is scandal.  Whether it be who’s getting nominated that doesn’t deserve to be nominated or who’s not getting nominated that should be nominated, I love watching the drama that surrounds award seasons.  I say this without judgment (like all spectator sports, I consider it to be something worth keeping out of), because I feel largely unqualified to comment on it (owing to the reasons stated in the second paragraph of this blog post).

Until today, that is.

The scandal of this particular era is self-promotion.  Specifically, whether or not it’s ethical and/or tacky to make your eligibility for awards known.

There are dozens of arguments out there about it, the big ones being Adam Roberts’ perspective on it (generally against it), John Scalzi’s counterpoint (generally for it) and Amal El-Mohtar’s post on social effects you might not even have considered.

My perspective?

I don’t chase awards.

There are plenty of reasons why I don’t, but like any human endeavor, the big ones are Fear and Apathy.

I’m at a point where I’m comfortable enough with myself to not fear being judged by others.  I’m confident enough in my book, my personality and my skills to say that, yes, I do believe you should read them and you would probably enjoy them.  But I don’t think any author ever moves past the fear of being met with apathy: people either not voting or not caring enough to nominate.  There’s nothing worse than standing up on a chair, screaming “I AM IMPORTANT” and being met with deafening silence.

“Apathy” might not be the right word for the second reason, but it’s slightly more poetic than “I ain’t got the time.”  A lot of energy goes into being an author: writing, reading, social media-ing, worrying about death and, of course, self-promotion.  Not the “I am eligible for this award, please nominate me” kind, but the “I really would like to not die, please look at this book I wrote” kind.  It’s not that I don’t care about awards, I just care more about solidifying my career, first.

Award-chasing always seemed like a rich man’s game to me.  Something you do when you’re no longer concerned with things like rent.  I’m sure there are arguments to be made for why it’s a worthwhile endeavor, but like I didn’t say: I ain’t got the time.

All that said, though?

I’m definitely in favor of award eligibility awareness and, in fact, very in favor of all self-promotion.

Not that this should come as a surprise to most people who read this blog, what with me having made an entire post about how to self-promote oneself effectively.  But generally, I like the idea that writers succeed at what they do.  And, whether you like it or not, that requires self-promotion today.

Publishing is a shaky industry.  Editors are decidedly more cautious about who they take on and generally inclined to take the safer bets of pushing authors who are known to be popular.  Writing is precarious career to begin with.  And when you’re in a precarious career within a shaky industry, you should not only be forgiven for doing all you can within reason to support your position, but lauded for doing so.

I view it less as a matter of ego and more as a matter of survival.  And I think this is a point that fails to connect with a lot of people who speak out against self-promotion.  I don’t particularly hold it against them if they remain unswayed by this idea.  Goodness knows I’ve certainly been put off by the degree of some peoples’ self-promotion (points I have covered in the above-linked blog post).  But it can’t really be helped.  If the options are between being perceived as obnoxious but still permitted to write for a living or being dignified and slipping from public perception, well…

But here’s the truth of the matter.

Anyone who would hold self-promotion against you wasn’t going to like you, anyway.

Readers, by and large, do not idly drift through the literatosphere, happening on each book in its own time.  Reading is a culture.  Reading is a social activity.  Reading communicates ideas that we are keen to communicate to others.  Readers want to read what their friends are reading, what their peers are reading, what people they trust are reading.  Readers want to talk to their friends about the characters they love, the plots that make them think, the wonders they find elsewhere.

Readers want to read. 

For prolific authors, word of mouth takes care of that.  For people struggling, it’s a little harder.  If you can honestly say to someone that you think they’d like your book, you absolutely should feel fine in saying so.  People who would resent you for it probably aren’t one going to one pick up your book, fall to their knees and weep: “The…the genius!  If only he hadn’t self-promoted so much!”

I won’t speculate why I think they think self-promotion is such a sin.  I won’t even try to convince you I’m right.  This blog is here primarily as a means of 1) saying whatever happens to come into my head and 2) fulfilling a mad power trip fantasy.

But, for reasons listed above, I’m for self-promotion.  And I can’t really begrudge anyone who thinks enough of their book to speak well of it.