This gripe is not directed here, but towards other platforms I as an author am forced to exist on when I wish I could be under my desk working on a novella.
But. If I see one more post about how it's "cringe" to self plug your work. Istg. Look me in my queer brown eyes. No one else is going to say my name or put my work in the ring for me.
If I want to be a part of a conversation or have any opportunity I have to put myself forward. In this era of abysmal publishing support even trad authors like me are out here hustling. We are doing it all, publicity, appearances, book swag all out of our pockets, during time we could be writing. All while publishing throws massive deals at white dudes who don't even have a book written!!
Do you think I've worked this hard, kicking down literally hundreds of doors slammed in my face to publish a book to give a single shit if it might be cringe to put my hat in the ring????
It’s our only real option folks. Word of mouth doesn’t work till enough people have read the book to talk it up.
And even if you’ve had readers- I lost access to thousands of people when Twitter did what Twitter did. Those readers have no idea I have a second book. We have to start over and over and over.
Because sometimes we want to be doing more than screaming into the void.
As an author who doesn’t have a lot of in-person support from friends and family, and as a person who grew up as a doormat keenly aware of whenever I needed to shut up about my interests because they were lame/too young for me/cringey, and as a blogger here who can see every time that I make a post about my writing specifically consistently perform worse than my general writing advice, it *really* feels like the collective internet is going “can you not tell that we don’t give a shit? Shut up already and give us the content we’re following you for”.
It takes effort to post about my books. Mental and emotional effort to ignore the instinct to stay quiet so I don’t get yet another post with 0 notes.
Campaigning for my books is the only project I have ever embarked on where I have not seen a quantifiable return on investment. Ever.
I started a youtube channel for gaming back at the beginning of April. I don’t have social media, I don’t talk about this channel anywhere. I just quietly make my videos and upload them on a regular schedule. And in two months I have gained 86 subscribers—proof that I can in fact create something that people enjoy that I desperately needed to not feel like a fraud.
Writing? It’s screaming into the void on a whole ‘nother level, and I have tried. I was on TikTok, I was on Instagram, I was on Bluesky (fuck X), and I’ve been on here. TikTok still won’t list my book in the links section. Instagram only gained me scammers’ attention. And Bluesky is just exhausting—I have always hated social media.
Heck, lately, I now have people who will comment on my posts, but who say “that’s nice now I’m going to ignore it and ask you something completely irrelevant” which is rude to say the least, and incredibly demoralizing.
I’ve created art, I’ve dropped entire chapters up for free, I still have an ongoing book giveaway campaign that no one has taken me up on. I’ve published on almost every platform available and sunk thousands into the two books I have on the market.
And of the 55 lifetime sales since I published my debut novel last August, 45 of those at least are from my few supportive relatives that are desperately trying to help me by shoving copies at anyone who likes to read.
So to hear from anyone, including myself, that it’s cringey to self-promote…
What the fuck else am I supposed to do? If you don’t want to hear about it, then unfollow me and move on. My writing advice that I give for free comes at no cost beyond having to occasionally see me talk about my hard work, work done so that I can make the informed posts that you do follow me for.
So for what it's worth:
Here is my debut dark fantasy vampire novel
And Here is my merfolk novella
