Confessions of a Newbie Author

Jill Williamson is a chocolate loving, daydreaming, creator of kingdoms. She writes weird books for teens in lots of weird genres like, fantasy (Blood of Kings trilogy), science fiction (Replication), and dystopian (The Safe Lands trilogy). Find Jill on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or on her author website.

After I signed my first book contract, I set to work marketing. I went ALL OUT. Truly, I was out of control, but I didn't know any better. I was new!

I did everything I could think of and more to market my first book. You can learn some of the [good] things I did by looking through my old blog posts here. The truth? Marketing consumed me. As did thinking about the fact that I now had a published book.

Basically, I thought about myself ALL THE TIME.

Why? Because I was terrified that I would fail. That my book would bomb. I wanted to do the best I could. And I desperately wanted people to love my book as much as I did. So, wherever I went---whoever I spoke to---in my head I was thinking, "I need to tell this person about my book! How can I find a way to bring it up and not look like a pompous jerk?"

Most the time, thankfully, I didn't bring it up.

But there was one time I went too far. I found a forum where people talked about books they liked. And I thought, "These people NEED to know about my book! How can I make use of this forum?"

So I made up a fake username, signed up for a membership, and wrote a post that raved about my own book.

Yep. I did that. Classy, I know. And I thought I was pretty clever too. Until I got an email from the forum moderator. It said that he had deleted my post because authors are not permitted to post about their own books.

I about died of humiliation and shame.

I still don't know how that computer genius knew I was the author. It wasn't THAT much of a raving post. I had tried to be subtle. It probably had something to do with my IP address. Who knows? It didn't really matter. What mattered was that I was instantly humbled. Why had I done such a thing? I had been blinded by ambition to the point of shamelessly plugging my own book. I couldn't believe I had sunk so low.

But it's true. I had.

I'd let fear overwhelm me. I didn't trust that my book would stand based on the amount of hard work I put into it. I was trying to control things by being manipulative.

It doesn't work. And it's SO not cool.

Since that humbling moment, I rarely ever plug my own books in person or online, with the exception of my personal website and social media accounts, which is where that stuff belongs, to a certain degree. Or unless it comes up naturally, for example, "Nice to meet you, Jill. What do you do for a living?" "Oh, I write books." "Really? What kind?" etc. But here's the lesson I learned really quickly back then: Yeah, do what you can to market yourself. But give up control and fear. Let it go. Move on. Trust that control and fear won't change a thing. So, don't let your thoughts be consumed with your book, whether you're afraid or the opposite, obsessed with your own awesomeness. Both are dangerous places to live.

Let your work speak for itself. If it sells wonderfully, great! If it bombs, take a look at any negative reviews to see where you might need to work on your craft for the next book. And if sales are simply mediocre, well, join the club. Few authors break out. The majority of us just keep writing new books as best we can. We develop a small group of loyal followers, and we write for them with all our hearts, thankful and blessed to have any readers at all.

Have you ever done something like this? You don't have to say what happened if you don't want to. I just want you to know that we've all been there. Even if an author never shamelessly plugged her own book online, the thought still ran through her mind at some point early on when that first book was coming out. These thoughts are normal. As are thoughts of jealousy and comparing ourselves to others. But that doesn't mean you should feed those thoughts. Catch them before they get too overblown in your mind and tell yourself, "No way! I'm not going to give in to the fear. I'm going to trust my writing to speak for itself."

Then keep on writing.