On the Fear of Self-Promotion
And one woman's attempt to get over it.
The guilt has been a lowkey but persistent presence ever since I first started writing a newsletter almost three years ago. I have been bad, very bad, about sticking to any kind of publishing schedule. At first I thought I’d find a cadence that felt both feasible and challenging; a goal that would require me to stretch myself just the right amount. Did this mean publishing a newsletter once a month? Once a week? Once every two weeks? Did it mean committing myself to publishing on certain days of the week, which is what the professional newsletter-writers seem to do?
For a while there, after launching this Substack, I was pretty good about it1. I sent my posts out on Friday mornings, and if it wasn’t every week, it was regular-ish. But I’ve been increasingly lazy about this schedule. I’ll look up and occasionally realize that I haven’t posted in, like, six weeks. This is certainly not good for my numbers! Nor for my personal brand! But I find that I have to be in the right headspace to write one of these pieces, and try as I might, I just cannot fake my way through it.
It’s not that I lack the capacity for discipline. I am very disciplined about various things, including the time I spend writing fiction. It’s just that, I think, there is some fundamental part of me that doesn’t want this newsletter to be a product of discipline. That part, instead, wants this newsletter to be a product of play. Of experimentation. Of holding things more loosely.
What I like about writing this newsletter is the way in which it surprises me. Often I begin a piece and I have no idea where it’s going to end up. (This is one of them, lol. Thanks for your patience!) Initially I conceived of this newsletter as an extension of my professional self. Something I did because I just enjoyed it—sure—but also because it was The Thing You Did. A newsletter is a good way for a writer to keep in touch with her readers, to increase her visibility, to drive preorders, etc.
Substack does this thing where they send you, the newsletter-creator, an email every week with various professional tips—how to grow your numbers, how to implement paid subscriptions, and so on. I’ve saved some of these emails, thinking I really ought to read them and heed this advice. Like: “How to Sell a Book on Substack.” Or: “How to pitch your Substack to press.” These emails, which are entirely well-meaning and honestly probably very useful, give me an intense allergic reaction. NO! I think. NO, NO, NO! This is not very chill of me, and I wonder what it’s all about.
My husband Andrew gives very good strategic professional advice. This is part of what he does for a living, but it’s also something that I’ve benefitted from (as have many of our friends). The other day I asked him to pretend I was one of his clients. If he had an hour-long session with me, what advice would give for my writing career?
Well, reader, he didn’t need an hour. While continuing to water the herbs on our deck, he said, very calmly: “I’d tell you to get over your fear of self-promotion.” (UGH, I thought. TOUCHE! Of course I have noticed this fear in myself before, many times. It’s not a lack of confidence—I have plenty of confidence, sometimes too much?—but self-promotion is, for some reason, a different beast. I can’t explain to you why it exists, but I can tell you that it does, in fact, exist. What can I say. I’m a Gemini, I contain multitudes.)
I used to think I could solve this aversion by finding the right platform—like, if I’m bad at Instagram and Twitter, maybe I’ll be good at Substack! But I don’t think this is the answer. I am not suddenly going to get “good” at this. It just ain’t gonna happen. Sorry, Substack. I will not be cooperating with this well-meaning advice. There is something very freeing about this realization. I think it’s what they call the acceptance phase.
Here’s the truth. It’s quite simple. I have a finite amount of writerly discipline, and that discipline gets channeled into my novels. I’m proud of those novels. I like them, and I think they’re good. But those novels also need an advocate in the world, and I need to be that advocate. I am far enough along in this career to realize that the writer cannot outsource this effort to her publishing team (no matter how great that team might be). She does so at her own peril. And, so. What does that advocacy actually look like?
This is the part I’m currently trying to figure out. I’ve been getting a nice response to early copies of The Helsinki Affair that are circulating in the world. These responses make me feel good, but they also (more importantly) have a generative quality. A reader tells me which aspects of the book resonated with them, and I think: Aha! Good to know. I need to find more readers like this! People who work in foreign policy and national security; foreign correspondents; the die-hards who read everything Le Carre ever wrote; Cold War buffs. Those readers are out there! But there are thousands of books published each week, an absolutely terrifying deluge of content, and it’s up to you, the author, to help your book stay afloat long enough so that the readers on the distant shore might someday, eventually, find it.
Again: what does that actually look like? I’ve been trying various things. I’ve been sending lots of emails. I’ve printed up business cards! I’ve had lots of candid conversations with my writer-friends on this subject, seeking their advice. I’ve been ignoring Twitter and Instagram because, honestly, whatever. I’ve been reminding myself that writing a book takes a long time, and it’s okay if it also takes a long time for that book to make its way.
It was often said by my colleagues in publishing, back when I was an editor at Random House, that you only had six-to-eight weeks to launch a new book into the world—but I have come to believe, as a writer, that this is simply not true. Yes, the publisher might only have six-to-eight-weeks to focus on your book. But guess what. This book doesn’t belong to the publisher. There is a contract that gives the publisher certain rights, but at the heart of the matter, at the place where it really counts, this book belongs to you.
So I’ve been trying to tackle this fear of self-promotion by realizing that it, too, can be a creative endeavor. It’s a strange new process for me, and I’m going to make it up as I go along. Will any of this work? Maybe, maybe not. I have no earthly clue. But I only learned how to write a book by writing a book. I’m only going to learn this new way of behaving by actually behaving that way. Perhaps these efforts are just shouting into a void! If this is the case, well, then, I might as well have FUN with the shouting.
On that questionably-coherent note, I am going to leave you with three recommendations, because that’s what I’m in the mood to do right now (see above re: FUN). The first is a newsletter recently launched by my sister, Nellie Pitoniak. It’s called Mother Stories. Nellie (who had a beautiful baby boy last year, aka my nephew!) has been interviewing other women about their stories of becoming mothers. She’s also written some pieces from her own perspective, which I particularly treasure. Both the interviews and essays are deeply wise and affecting, and I think everyone (but especially mothers!) should read them.
Moving from the sublime to the ridiculous, my second recommendation is for Esti hummus. The original kind. I have tried just about every variety of hummus sold on Fresh Direct and this one is the best. We had a dinner party the other night, and served some roasted carrots accompanied by pistachios and herbs and this hummus, and the hummus was, no joke, the hit of the party. Didn’t see that coming? But there you go.
My third recommendation is this interview Taylor Sheridan gave to the Hollywood Report. The swagger on this guy, my god! It’s wild. I like it. We need more of this energy in our lives (and by “we” I am especially talking to the women out there). I’ve never actually watched Yellowstone, but I really loved Sheridan’s movies Sicario and Hell or High Water, and after this (spicy! candid!) interview, I am inclined to finally give it a try.
“For now I’ll be sending this newsletter weekly, every Friday morning,” I wrote, back in September 2022. Lolol.