Selling Yourself to Strangers (the good way)

The querying continues. Or rather, the preparation for querying continues. While I'm doing game reviews and editing podcasts and filming for local news, I'm still peering through piles of agents and companies trying to find a good fit.

On top of that, after not winning Pitch Wars, I'm really working hard at trying to get my query letter and synopsis cleaned up. It's a strange, awkward thing to try to sell you book to a complete stranger. You'd think that being the person who wrote the silly thing would grant you the ability to explain it, but yet I stare at my letter, dumbfounded. It's about... demons? Well... and a kid that fights them. Well, not a kid, but a young man. And he... yeah. You get the idea. 

I think selling oneself is probably the hardest thing a writer has to do. Maybe editing is up there, too, but we're just not all built to sell ourselves. I've really had to change how I act, had to force myself to be upbeat and excited about my book when people ask what it's about. In the back of my mind I scared that everyone thinks I'm just a poser, just another "writer," sitting at Starbucks and announcing to everyone about the screenplay they're working on. I'm not. I know what I've been through and I know that my story is good. 

The problem is trying to get over that hurdle and convince someone else that it's good, too. I don't like bragging. It physically discomforts me. I've had self-esteem issues since I was a child, I just can't do it. But I know that the people who've read my manuscript liked it. Several have expressed sincere interest in reading more. I can see that my website gets decent traffic boosts whenever I post short stories and that, right now, The Heir of Archmond is garnering more traffic than any other part of my website. I can write. I can write well. I just can't tell people that.

So how in the world am I supposed to do that in a letter to a complete stranger? Well... when I'm done with it, maybe I'll share a post on how I got there. 

​Be Excellent to Each Other.