Bald Self-Promotion

My friend Larry McCoy has a book coming out in September. I’m still writing mine. My friend Steve Hunter has published sixteen or thereabouts and will have another out soon. What we have in common, in addition to writing, is that we all realize the unpleasant necessity of self-promotion.

It’s a necessity because publishers do not spend money promoting books—except for a few that sell anyway. In most cases you have to sell the thing yourself.

Wait a minute. Aren’t we supposed to be the fellows tucked away in our closets writing, thinking about structure and plot and character development and voice and all those aspects of a book that didn’t exist until we imagined it, and we’re supposed to be out there selling our books too? Not on yer life! What are we, Supermen?

Most of us are by nature quiet people who are happy alone in our garrets writing and would be miserably unhappy out trying to sell something, least of all ourselves. But publishing, being a business no different than insurance or oil or groceries, is about keeping revenue up and costs down. Publishing houses have much in common with banks, who prefer lending to rich people, and insurance companies, who prefer to insure the healthy.

So much for their problem. Now, about ours. Larry’s book, due in September, is called Did I Really Change My Underwear Every Day? It’s a funny book about the inconveniences of growing older. Larry’s a funny guy. I went to high school with him; he was funny then, and he’s still funny. In the meantime he had a successful career in the news biz and now writes regular essays on his website at http://larrymccoyonline.com/ in which he skewers the biz, himself, and others. It’s one of my favorite sites.

 Steve Hunter is a Pulitzer-prize film critic who writes thrillers, is a master of plot and dialog, and knows everything about guns. But Steve doesn’t do websites. He went one better. He wrote, produced and starred in a YouTube short promoting his latest Bob Swagger book titled Dead Zero. You can find it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5tKm9AUiow or by Googling Stephen Hunter’s Dead Zero.

Can’t wait to see what he’ll do to promote his next one. Or to see Larry’s next essay.