As you can tell from my place on the Bestsellers List, I’m an expert…at being a marketing noob.  Knowledge is power, they say, so I thought I’d share with you my experiences.

1. Get your social media game up.  I got a blog. I got a Facebook page.  I tweet, for some reason.  I even push stuff out to Google Plus for the druids that live in that forest.  And now apparently I need to make this a picture book because I’m supposed to be on Pinterest, Instagram, and Snapchat, too, and I’m like THESE PEOPLE AREN’T REAL. THEY DON’T TAKE SELFIES. And then I wonder how much time I should be spending on orchestrating pictures they might take, which leads me to a dark, dark place.  I am going to get micro-chipped next time I take my pets to the vet, in case I get lost.
2. Do the Goodreads Things.  Feel inadequate about the number and variety of books you read while trying to sound erudite yet hilarious.  Even reading is a goddamned popularity contest now.  Listen.  I started reading books because I was being badly beaten in the popularity contest.  At least the conversations are good and I now have a whole host of new things to try so I can go back to calling myself well-read.
   

   Here’s me at the height of my teen-aged wild days.  Look how trendy I wasn’t. Isn’t he cute though?

3. Self-promotion. What a Catch-22 this fathermugger is.  Like, it’s one thing to ask people to read something professionally.  But to ask people to read it for enjoyment is a paradoxical combination of rudeness, conceit, and desperation.  If you don’t tell people about it, however, they won’t hear about it.  And if you sign up for those services that are meant to promote your book for you without it coming from your mouth, you look even worse!  THIS IS TERRIBLE. IT IS WORSE THAN BRUSSEL-SPROUT-FLAVORED NETWORKING. HOW DO I GET OUT OF HERE.
4. Promote Others. Oh, this is much nicer!  I like interviewing my amazingly talented friends and acquaintances and having them do guest blogs.  I think it gets a lot more exposure, too, because you can combine the audience of people who like you and the people who like them.  The problem is…if you spend all your time promoting them then you still haven’t…you know.  Marketed yourself.  Huh.
5. Write guest blogs and interviews.  This is awesome and we should all do this!  But we are all trying to do this.  So much so that it’s created a market for this kind of promotion to the point that often you have to pay for the pleasure of creating content for someone else which is absolutely bananas. People die from exposure, and here we are paying cash money for the chance.  Spend money to make money, I get it, but for the love of God, there are limits.  I haven’t geared myself up to do this, yet.  I’m told I should.  I should also get life insurance and learn how to change the oil in my car.  It could happen any day now.
6. Give up and mope on your blog.  Ah yes!  This is much more my speed!  I hope it’s working.