Holy, moly, mother of god, does public relations, marketing and platform building stress me out. I feel like I should know all this stuff already and I don’t. People say comforting things like, “A writer’s job is to write. Only do as much marketing work as you are comfortable with.”

Do people really believe that in this day and age? Or is that just something we comfort ourselves with?

How are you supposed to set yourself apart from the huge mass of people with products screaming look at me look at me! I don’t even know what the difference between marketing and publicity means. I sent my publicist an email the other day and she sent me a note back and said, “Sent your question over to marketing!” Oh. Uh. Sorry I sent it to the wrong person…

WTF???

So I am crash-coursing it, reading time management books, platform building books, and books on promoting all at the same time. Not to mention blogs of all kinds, publishing blogs, social media blogs, and blogs for entrepreneurs. Learning, learning, learning.

But every blog and every book just increases my sense of panic because every damn one of them has more things I should be doing: Increase your followers! Come up with a one sentence sound bite about your platform! Write down all your goals! Create more content! Build relationships! Connect with people! Exclamation point after exclamation point after exclamation point!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Not to mention things you should be doing in the rest of your life: Achieve balance! Meditate! Exercise! Eat healthy! Organize! Volunteer! Floss! Go Organic!

Whimper.

Also, according to social media experts, I should be offering something of value to my followers, friends, readers and fans…So I have come up with a sound bite, a platform I can get behind, and an exclamation point that helps me keep perspective in my career and in my personal life:

DRINK MORE WINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Does marketing your book freak you out? It does me! @teribrownwrites

On the blog: Is your book marketing plan one long set of exclamation points? @teribrownwrites