Getting Smart About Self-Promotion

    I'm thinking about self-promotion this week. Sandra Beckwith is one of the experts. Sandra is a former publicist who shares her award-winning expertise with others as the author of two publicity how-to books and a book publicity workbook, and as a publicity workshop presenter and e-course instructor. She is the author of Publicity for Nonprofits: Generating Media Exposure That Leads to Awareness, Growth, and Contributions and Streetwise Complete Publicity Plans: How to Create Publicity That Will Spark Media Exposure and Excitement. Her two book publicity e-courses and free book publicity e-zine help authors learn how to generate media exposure for their books. Learn more at buildbookbuzz.com, nonprofitpublicity.com, and her terrific blog.  Here’s part two of my conversation with Sandra about self-promotion:

Leslie: In the past, conducting self-promotion was looked down upon, but in the last several years it’s seemingly become more acceptable. Why is that?

Sandra: I think that's in large part because of the developments in social media. Blogging, in particular, is an easy, natural, and affordable way to showcase expertise and accomplishments and people are embracing it. I think that as a whole, we're all a little less uptight these days, too. If you told my 80-year-old mother you were going to get married, she'd say, "Leslie, honey, why don't you live with him first and see how you like it?" I believe that's what is known as a sea change....

Leslie: One of the problems I encountered when I was doing promotion for my books was all the TIME it took. How can people be really good managers of their time so that they can promote AND do the work they’re promoting?

Sandra: This is a great question. I suspect it's a problem many of us struggle with. I think we have to see promotion as part of our job description and schedule it into our calendars for a few hours every week. Treat it like a meeting on your calendar so that the time gets protected and you get the work done. But it's not enough to make the time for it -- you also have to use your time wisely. Get the focus and structure you need by creating a promotion plan with a timeline and sticking to it.