Learning the Other Half of Self-Publishing / 16 June 2026

One of the more amusing discoveries of first-time self-publishing is that finishing the book is not, in fact, the moment when everything calms down and sensible congratulations begin.

No. Finishing the book appears to be the point at which a whole second profession quietly emerges from behind a curtain and says, “Excellent. You are now also in charge of letting people know the book exists.”

I had not fully appreciated this.

Writing, for all its frustrations, at least makes intuitive sense. There are characters, scenes, problems, bad sentences, better sentences, and the occasional glorious afternoon when everything suddenly works and you briefly assume you may be a genius before correcting yourself by tea time.

Promotion is rather different. Promotion seems to involve learning an elaborate social dance in which one must be visible but not pushy, confident but not tiresome, active but not exhausting, and somehow “build a presence” without sounding as though one has emerged from a cave wearing a paper crown and shouting about one’s novel.

As an unknown writer, this can feel faintly absurd. You start with the humbling realisation that the world was managing perfectly well without updates on your imaginary universe. Then you are told, quite reasonably, that if you’d like readers to discover your book, you must gently and repeatedly appear where readers might be.

This is fair enough. It is also unexpectedly tiring.

There are websites to assemble, profile pages to complete, short posts to write, longer posts to write, and bios to draft in which you try to sound like a real human being rather than someone applying for the post of Local Fantasy Enthusiast, Third Class.

Still, I’m finding a rhythm. The trick, I think, is not to treat promotion as shouting, but as conversation. Not “Look at me immediately,” but “Hello — here’s what I’m making, here’s why I care about it, and perhaps you might too.”

That feels manageable. Even for a beginner.