Bill Watterson, Picasso, and self promotion
I think there&#x27;s a lot to unpack in this article. I really struggle with self-promotion[1] - or, as my Mother still insists on calling it, &quot;boasting&quot; (with all the negative baggage associated with that word) - but, as the article says, there really isn&#x27;t any alternative to it if you want to get your product&#x2F;work noticed. The internet has super-saturated the marketplaces for ideas, opinions and all the art&#x2F;code&#x2F;writing that accompanies the need to be heard&#x2F;respected by peers&#x2F;etc.<p>In my view the Gold Standard for promotion is not self-promotion or paid promotion. It&#x27;s the elusive word-of-mouth promotion done on your&#x2F;the work&#x27;s behalf by complete strangers telling their friends about you&#x2F;it and encouraging them to go check it out. My evidence for this is based on the number of downloads of my books from Apple Books, Google Play and similar online venues over the past 10 years.<p>I gave up trying to self-promote my writing many, many years ago. Being rejected hurts; being ignored hurts more. Still, over the past 10 years people have downloaded my books over 40,000 times. The only plausible explanations have to be word-of-mouth, and trickery.<p>Trickery? Yes. One book in particular[3] gets downloaded far more often than the others - it accounts for around 70% of total downloads. Why? When I first published it I gave it a title that turned out to be pure clickbait. A happy accident! The book does its own self-promotion without any need need for my help.<p>[1] - Most of my contributions&#x2F;comments on HN centre around my attempts to self-promote my work in ways that try not to look like marketing spam[2]. I&#x27;m sure if I work hard enough at developing this skill I will, eventually, get better at it.<p>[2] - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;user?id=rikroots" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;user?id=rikroots</a><p>[3] - You can read and&#x2F;or download the book for free, with no added tracking, from my website: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;rikverse2020.rikweb.org.uk&#x2F;book&#x2F;poems-to-quote-to-your-lover" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;rikverse2020.rikweb.org.uk&#x2F;book&#x2F;poems-to-quote-to-yo...</a>