How to Self-Promote When You Hate Self-Promotion

Or, how to make this necessary evil somewhat bearable

Hi there, it’s Michael here from the Writing to (L)Earn team. Today we’re going to dive into five ways to self-promote when the very thought of it makes your skin crawl. Let’s get into it.

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Some people don’t have any problem talking about how great their work is. Some lunatics even look forward to it.

I’m not one of those people. Nor am I one of those lunatics. For me, self-promotion is akin to putting my right pinkie into a vice and slowly turning it until I’m left with four digits.

Despite this aversion, I’ve managed to carve out a decent living as a writer without losing too much of my sanity.

If you also have zero interest in acting like a peacock and showing all the world your feathers to get people to see your work, then welcome to the club.

I hated self-promotion so much that I even wrote a book called “Shy by Design,” which came out this year. (See what I did there? Self-promotion!) I learned a couple of important lessons when my publisher and I launched the book. I’ll share them with you here, so you can incorporate them into your marketing efforts.

1. Talk about how much you hate self-promotion

I was warned by numerous authors that once I was done writing my book, I’d hate it. I didn’t find that to be the case. In fact, I was really proud of what I’d written.

But despite standing behind my work, when it came time to begin promoting the book before its release, I struggled to put myself out in front of it. The first two months of the pre-launch were painful. It took me a solid three hours to write a simple LinkedIn post about the book and another four hours to summon the courage to post it. It got to a point where I had to call a friend to yell at me until I hit publish.

But this paralyzation shifted roughly forty days before its release when on one rainy June morning, I blacked out for an hour and published a post about how self-promotion has stamped out every ounce of joy in my life;).

It immediately took off.

Looking back, this makes sense. Sure, on platforms like LinkedIn or X, it often feels like everyone was born with a megaphone. But that’s just the loud ones talking. Just as many people — if not way more — despise self-promotion. This is especially true with the many avid readers and quiet writers who prefer sitting behind a desk instead of taking the stage.

Lean into this fact.

If you’re hesitant to share a talk you gave, consider kicking off your promotional post with the fears you had before giving the presentation. It’s super relatable.

Talking about how much you despise one aspect of your work has a beautiful way of leading eyes to your work.

2. Shine the light on the people who have helped you

My writing career can be summed best up by sharing how people have helped me overcome challenges. At least half of my articles and the entirety of my book are rooted in a piece of advice I received from someone who made my life less hard.

For some ungodly reason, I forgot this when it came time to initially promote my book. I got so wrapped up in thinking of ways to try to make myself look cool that I didn’t share the messages from the good people in my life that I feel are worth listening to.

Who has helped you on your way?
What did they teach you?

Rather than just name these people, tell the story that means the most to you. Maybe it was a piece of advice they gave. Or maybe they physically did something that played a part in paving your way. Taking the route of sharing the heroes in your own hero’s journey positions you as humble and someone brave enough to seek out and accept help.

If I’ve learned anything in my career, it’s that shining the spotlight on others allows us to still catch some rays.

3. Create a small accountability group (while complaining about the state of the online world)

If you need to pay someone to post for you so your energy isn’t wasted on efforts that wear you out, do it. But if you don’t have the funds or the time to get a helper up to speed, recruit some friends who are also in the middle of doing something difficult and support each other.

I’m not a huge fan of LinkedIn. However, being that my book was geared toward career advice, getting more active there made sense as I want people to read what I wrote. Teaming up with three friends who were also looking to post more helped me to keep moving. At times, when we bantered on each other's posts, it even did the impossible and made the platform kinda fun.

Find your people.
Lean on them.
We don’t need to do hard things alone.

Good things happen when we make a commitment to lift each other as we climb together.

4. Share the bruises and beauty you encountered while making your thing

My house was in constant disarray when I was writing my book. My kid's teacher thought he was trying to make a fashion statement by constantly wearing mixed-matched socks. He wasn’t. My wife gave me dagger eyes when I finally joined her and our kids for dinner after being called four times. I’m not even going to get into how much weight I gained during the process.

Give people a peak of your life behind the scenes when you’re making your things. Just keep in mind to not make it all bad.

Throughout the process of writing my book, I reconnected with countless old friends and got great advice from unlikely sources. Asking childhood friends about our memories reminded me of countless stories I’d forgotten about. Seeing the pride and love on my wife and kids’ faces when they held my book for the first time sent me to Mars.

I’ve come to realize that not sharing these stories and lessons learned during our journey to making our thing is selfish.

After all, what’s the point in putting in the work if other people can’t benefit from it?

5. Fuel your present by revisiting your past

As I mentioned earlier, I think my book is tight. It’s my first mountain book. The first forty-five years of my life. I blocked the world and pined over every word. Whenever I was overly procrastinating on promoting it, I took a step back to reread the stories and lessons learned. Every single time I did this, it gave me the kick in the beans I needed to share what I’d made.

Read through your older articles. Take note of how far you’ve come and the person you’ve become. If you’re reading this today, it means you’re already brave as you’ve already overcome countless challenges by simply being alive.

We can wait all day for outside validation.

I’m yet to come across a better way to bet on ourselves than taking the time to validate ourselves.

Death to self-promotion. Long-live self-promotion.

Having an aversion to self-promotion can often feel like a character flaw. Like we’re one of the weak ones. But being scared, nervous, or downright terrified to share our work is actually a massive strength. It demonstrates we respect our audience and don’t want to waste a second of their time.

In short, it shows we give a damn.

And if the world needs anything right now, it’s people who care.

—Michael, with John & Darius