This wild and crazy journey: Marketing my self-published novels.

 So I think of myself as an intelligent man, but intelligence is relative, after all. 

    You may be a genius in atomic engineering, making groundbreaking discoveries left and right, but find yourself with engine trouble in some sleepy little burg, and suddenly the guy with greasy overalls and an 'It's Miller Time' baseball cap is the brilliant one.

     I only bring this up because of my recent forays into the hyper-competitive world of social media as I work to further my goals to market my trio of self-published novels. To say this is a brave new world for me would be an understatement of grand proportions. My grasp of digital technology boils down to turning the device on (something I may or may not accomplish on any given occasion) and then praying that I don't need to dive any deeper than using said device as anything more than a glorified Smith-Corona typewriter.

I am fine until anything, and I mean ANYTHING, goes awry. At that point, I call out to my long-suffering spouse, and we go over whatever it is I've forgotten for about the fiftieth time. I can't start to express just how much she enjoys these little IT refresher courses. Now that I think about it, she may even refute my opening claim that I am an intelligent man; It's just a feeling I get. Anyway, I'm getting off point. This blog post was supposed to be about me dipping my big toe into the deep end of the social media platform pool. 

Well, after a couple of years of building a readership for my books that mostly centered around relatives and close friends and after a couple of poorly executed attempts at self-marketing, a friend of mine (to protect her identity, we'll call her Yuliya) decided enough was enough, and through some tough love, and I dare say sheer intimidation, ordered me to get off my ass and buckle down; this social media thing would happen, whether I liked it or not.

Fast forward three months, and I've made fantastic progress. Of course, one should understand that I'm grading myself on a sliding scale here and only considering input from one source. But hear me out; to date, I have a Linktree account, started this blog, an up-and-running TikTok page with an ever-growing number of followers (it's incredible how many of the women who follow me are wondering if I'm lonely; who knew?), an Instagram page with precisely one post (most definitely a work in progress), and my newest addition to my social media empire, a Pinterest page. (Boy, Pinterest can take you down a particularly confusing wormhole if you're not careful.) 

Mind you, this whole affair was challenging, especially for my cohort, the woman we'll refer to as the so-called Yuliya. It started with several Zoom calls on Telegram. Unfortunately, these did not go smoothly. It started with me asking a simple question, "what's Telegram," and went downhill from there. There was one upshot from the numerous hitches, though. If this whole author thing doesn't pan out, I may be looking forward to a bright future as a mime! Anyway, after an hour or so of pantomime, we finally got down to the business of getting my fledgling social media brand out there for all to see. 

The first call started with us going over several highly organized Google sheets Yuliya had prepared, or if I'm honest, and that, of course, is the whole reason behind writing this blog post, to be transparent, then I must admit I had never heard of Google Sheets, and that we dithered around another forty minutes or so as it slowly started to dawn on Yuliya just how clueless I was. At this point, she must have understood that my significant other may have been right about me all along. I can still recall the sound of my wife humming contently in the background as I spent several hours in social-platform daycare.

But in the end, we persevered. It wasn't easy, not even close, but I'll say this wholeheartedly. If I can do it, you can do it. Then again, if you found your way to my blog all by yourself, you're already light years ahead of where I was starting. It took some getting used to, and I was completely out of my element as I expanded my comfort zone, but it's going to be worth it. People are taking an interest and responding to my numerous posts, and I'm gaining daily traction as my following increases.

Thanks to my wife and good friend "Yuliya," I yanked the training wheels off, and even though I fell a few times and got some nasty bumps and bruises along the way, it opened up a whole new world to me, and I'm no longer intimidated by things I don't understand. Well, I'm still a little intimidated, but, you know, baby steps.