The Dirty Shameful Things I Did In High School That Help My Writing Career Today

By Aaron Ritchey

So the delightful Delilah S. Dawson blogged about the perils of book promotion, how to do it wrong, and how to do it right. So really, I’m not covering any new ground, and you should probably watch the Star Wars Episode VI trailer again. Right?

Shortest. Blog post. Ever.

You can do a quick search for the Star Wars Episode VI trailer, or Ms. Dawson’s blog posts. Or, you can read about me and what happened to me when I was in high school, because in high school, I had to do some dirty, shameful things to further my writing career.

And I hated every minute of it.

What did I have to do in high school?

Let me paint a picture for you. It was in a dusty old classroom, it was about ten of us literary geeks, working on the Regis Jesuit High School literary magazine, Impressions. The magazine ran a short story contest, and we all voted on first, second, and third place. Pat Engelking always won first place. That rat bastard.

And I always submitted a story. And I always voted for my own story, and I HATED having to vote for my own story, but what were my options? Let Pat Engelking walk away with first place again? Never!

My own vote was critical. There were only ten of us. I never came in first, but I always placed.

In my fantasy, I would walk into the room, people would bow their heads, the voting would start, no one would raise their hand until my story was called, and then every single hand in the room would go up. Unanimous! I had won! I would then vote for Pat Engelking’s story, and he would win second place and all would be right in the world.

Didn’t work that way. However, I did learn that if I didn’t have a story, I couldn’t enter the contest. I had to write and edit to get my story ready. And once ready, I learned that I had to believe in the work. I had to vote for my own stuff.

And I still have to vote for my own stuff. Promoting my book is raising my hand and saying, “Yes, I wrote something good, that you should read, that is worthy of your time. Here are the details on how to buy it. Thank you for your support.”

Ideally, the entire marketing team at Simon and Schuster would be voting on my stuff, but they haven’t yet. Someday, though, someday. But as it stands, even if I got a big contract with a big publishing house, guess what? Most likely, I’d still have to raise my hand and vote on my own stuff. Because unless you hit it big and are chosen by whatever fickle gods look down upon us authors, the money will flow to the sales, and if you don’t have sales, you don’t get the marketing dollars, and as newbie authors, it’s up to you to get sales.

Now, there are a variety of ways to promote your books without making yourself look like an asshat. I try and use the 30/30/30 rule. On social media, I spend 30% of my time promoting my stuff, 30% promoting other people’s stuff, and 30% posting pictures of kittens, or commenting on the Star Wars Episode VI trailer, or sharing interesting links.

In the end, though, my job isn’t to sell you my book. No. My job is to listen to what you are looking for, look for a need, and, as readers, we all have needs, and then point you to a book that will fill that need. If you are looking for an adult romance, I wouldn’t offer you my book. I’d point you to RMFW’s own Andrea Stein, or Joan Johnston, or Cassie Miles (a.k.a. Kay Bergstrom).

In the end, like it or not, part of my job as an author is to vote on my own books, talk about books, offer readers information on how to buy my books.

I didn’t sign up for that, but it’s part of the deal. *sigh*. Until I become rich and famous. Which is going to happen any day now. Any day.

This is me. Raising my hand. Voting for myself.