Baby doesn't like shameless self promotion

[jennickels]

"I'm uncomfortable with this on so many levels..."

Anyone else have a thing against advertising their fic?  It just seems weird to paste links to my stuff all over (like in the rec comms and stuff).  I don't know why.  If I ever became a published author I'd be screwed with all the publicity stuff.  I hate it.  Maybe I'm just weird.

Of course, I also get very few reviews on my stories but oh, well.  Just wondering if I was alone?

Also because I wanted an excuse to post this video from iCarly.  It cracks me up.

Yes, I'm easily amused.

Comments

[nynaeve-sedai.livejournal.com]

I feel weird about it too. I generally will post it on my personal stuff and I'll drop a note in the S/J Appreciation thread on GateWorld, but that's about it. I think that's why I don't get a lot of hits either (or rather, it takes foooorever to get hits). Plus, getting reviews these days is like pulling teeth. Just not a lot of people reading I think.

[campylobacter.livejournal.com]

I have NO problem pimping my own fan works or the fan works of others. My Twitter/LJ pimping is about a 1:10 ratio of my stuff to the works of other fen.

If haters think spreading the fandom squee is shameless, I say let them flounce themselves into obscurity.

[ami-ven.livejournal.com]

(sorry, deleted and reposted because I can't type *g*)

Anyway...

A lot of what I write is for prompt-challenges (like ncisdrabble100) so I post the stories at my journal, then a link at the origial community. For stuff like 24_times (I'm doing a table of Abby/McGee from NCIS) or 100_tales (another table, Sam/Jack) I post to those and an appropriate fandom-based community.

If somebody asks something like, "does anybody know any stories with ___?" and I've written some, I'll share the links, but that's usually in a reply to one person's entry.

I know some people expect dozens and dozens of comments on their writing, but I feel pretty darn special to get eight or ten!

[thothmes.livejournal.com]

My dad is a professional author, and the self-promotion aspect of that is the one thing about the job that he HATES, HATES, HATES, even though for him it really is a determinant of how much income he will make from his work.

Have you ever heard of him, you ask? Probably not. He's published several novels, a half-dozen volumes of poetry, and a book of short stories, but he frantically quashed his agent's scheme to get a single paragraph review of his first novel published in People magazine before it could come to pass. I knew then that he was not going to be following his buddy John Irving into the land of fantastic commercial success!

I have a terrible time pimping my own work. If I write comment fic, I view it as a bit of a gift to the recipient, and I kind of feel funny directing people off to their space to see my work, so I'd say about half of what I've written is known to only a select group of the author, and those people who came along to comment after I did.

I admire lolmac's ability for cheerful (and never OTT or in bad taste) self-recommendation, but that's just not my strength. I guess growing up in my father's school, I'm like an Olympian from the early part of the 20th century when faced with the possibility of having my face plastered on the Wheaties box. I'm gratified to see others there, but it just doesn't seem like my personal style. I'm glad when others let me know that their stuff is out there, I just don't seem to be able to turn that around and assume that others want to hear that from me.