The struggles of self promotion

I'm not sure if it's just me or if this is relatable, but self promotion does not come easy for me.

In today's society, social media encourages its users to be a little self indulgent. Everyone on these platforms has the opportunity to share as little or as much as they'd like about themselves. Generally speaking (as it doesn't apply to everyone), the younger generations are well versed in sharing as much about their lives and experiences as possible. Some have amassed sizable audiences in doing so, turning into full-fledged content creators.

One of many promo photos. Credit to Wisconsin Frights for this one.

For me, that's not really my thing. Sure, my life has its share of fun and interesting moments, but I'm not one to post much about it. On my personal pages, my posts are usually one of three things: random, funny or inspirational, mood dependent. But if you look at my history, I'm not a heavy social media user.

That changed last summer after Rowan Prose Publishing offered me a contract for Legend Has It. I created social media pages for all of my author-related updates and have posted to them at a steady rate.

But with almost a year of running these social pages, I still struggle with promoting myself. I don't see self promotion as a bad thing, but my background as a journalist makes it a tad uncomfortable at times.

I'll explain. During my newspaper years, I had the concept of objectivity drilled into my head. Professors and mentors taught me that objectivity meant keeping your opinions and viewpoints to yourself. You are there to report on the news, not add your personal commentary or experiences to it.

With social media gaining further prominence during this time in my life (the late 2000s), I had to limit my personal takes to private conversations. Not that many of my opinions were extreme or incendiary. But I knew that if someone knew my opinions - even the tame ones - on any subject, they would be less likely to trust my reporting on that topic. They would assume I was operating from my biases and not being objective.

In turn, I kept my social media as tame as possible. And it didn't bother me. Yes, I still had opinions on everything, but I didn't want our readers to find any way they could to discredit my reporting. I wouldn't even contribute to the Opinions section of the newspaper.

Nowadays, this practice almost seems useless. Some journalists are encouraged to be brand ambassadors. Some share their thoughts freely on their social pages. And even if they didn't, the social climate today has mistrust at its core. It seems almost trendy to not trust the media, be it local or national.

Regardless of how it all turned out, it still feels strange to promote my work. I could be reaching out to a bookstore or a local reporter and I feel this slight hesitancy to set up an event or story about Legend Has It. Sometimes, I mention this out loud to people, who more often than not say I shouldn't apologize or feel like I need to explain how odd this is for me. They tend to say, "Why wouldn't you promote your novel? You worked hard at it. You should be excited. It's a great achievement."

Speaking of self promotion, I'll be at an author event in the summer of 2026 in Denver.

Maybe it really is that simple. Perhaps that mindset shift is really all I need. I'm sure many can relate that old habits are difficult to break. I guess self promotion just feels like a dirty term to me. Shouldn't your work stand on its own? Wouldn't it have more credibility coming from someone else?

I'll keep working on that mindset shift. After all, even the largest brands with the strongest followings still spend millions on marketing. At the moment, Legend Has It isn't on any book or recommended reading lists. It's up to myself and my publisher to spread the word and the readers do the rest.

On that note, if you're looking to preorder Legend Has It, you can do so right here.