Priming the Pump: The Duty of Today's Author

Marketing yourself as a writer is exhausting. Just sayin’.

Perhaps it’s just me, but I’m wiped by the end of one of the “Let’s spread the Chloe Stowe name” days. And, yes, I do really have those days. This, definitely, is just a “me” thing.

"Delusions of Top Chef Grandeur"

With my various mental “eccentricities,” shall we say, putting myself out there online is not only nerve-wracking it’s potentially maddening. Literally. Crumbling up into a fetal position once you get done posting to a new group is not normal. Definitely pitiful, but not normal.

But I do it.

Reluctantly, and with a visible tremble to my right hand, I do it.

I do it because I believe it is necessary in today’s world of digital publishing. While the publishing house you write for will do (or should do) a tremendous amount of the “Buy this Chloe Stowe book!” stuff, it’s up to the author to get the world waiting with bated breath for that Chloe Stowe book.

I believe an author’s job is to prime the pump. Get the hungry readers out there drooling over the smells from the writer’s kitchen long before the actual meal is served. (Hmm, I wonder how many metaphors I can work into a single blog? Lol. Apologies for that, but…)

On release day, an author ideally should want their readers lining up at the kitchen door, knives and forks at the ready, mouths watering at the thought of the delicious experience you are about to give them.

“Delusions of Top Chef grandeur,” I like to call it.

Does it work? Does it help? Does all this networking really add anything to your sales? I don’t know. I think it does. I believe it does, but have I got any empirical proof of it? No. But that’s not the only reason I do it.

If a book fails, I don’t want it to be because I, the author, didn’t try hard enough. I want to be able to tell myself that I put everything I had into making that novel a success… and in this world that means more than just writing it.

My parents always told me growing up that the final grades I got didn’t really matter as long as I could tell them to their face that I honestly tried my very best… For good or bad, it’s a lesson I still hold dear as a writer.

For what it’s worth.

Until tonight…

Chloe