With some regularity I hear from authors who say something like, “I don’t want to promote my book because I don’t want people to think this is about me.” I understand the sentiment, and actually I deeply respect it. But there are two problems: 1. Book promotion is not about the author; it’s about the book. And 2. if the author does not help promote the book, it likely won’t sell, which diminishes the author’s chances of working with a publisher in the future.

1. Help people.
2. Cultivate a tribe.
3. Do speaking engagements in which (again) you are trying to help people.
4. When you are leading a tribe of people who already care about what you’re doing and want to support you, give them the opportunity. Be careful, gracious, and polite when you do this.
5. Make it about the content, not you.
6. Avoid blasts and forms and automated whatevers. (Ask your publisher to do this.) Instead, focus on your tribe.
7. For God’s sake have fun. People want to be around people who are having fun.
8. Let’s say you have 100 people who subscribe to your blog. Anybody who allows your posts into the inner sanctum of an email inbox is a fan to the core. Amen? How can you serve these 100 people? Do that. Then see where it leads.
9. Brainstorm by yourself or with friends all the different kinds of speaking engagements to which your book lends itself. Pursue those engagements.
10. Is there some way you can turn the content of your book into a free web-based seminar?
11. Team up with other authors and do something together. Make it less about you and more about we. Join a community of writers.
12. Submit guest posts to blogs that attract the same kind of folks you want to attract.
13. Study what your favorite bloggers and social media movers are doing. Do your own version of what they do. Repeat.
14. Did I mention helping people?
15. Can you turn the content of your book into an event of some kind and then offer that event for free or cheap?
16. Do you have some content that you can give away free with the purchase of your book? Sometimes people just need a little bit of incentive to make the buy.
17. Make your next book better than the last. Craft. Concept. Content.
18. Remember the give part of give-and-take when it comes to social media. Social media, as I understand it, is about connecting with people. Make time for that.
19. Social media is not the equivalent of your free broadcast network, but let’s say it was. Networks understand that most of their content has to be stuff people actually want to watch. If all CBS or NBC did was show commercials, they’d make a lot of money for about two days. Then they’d go bankrupt.
20. Every once in a while, just for the fun of it, do something crazy generous and sweet for one of the people in your tribe.
21. Be honest. We have mixed motives. We do want to help people, but we do want people to buy our content too. Acknowledge that, accept it, and then do your best to be a kind, decent person that others want to be around.

How do you promote your book (or blog) without being a scuzzball? Your ideas could end up being really useful to someone else.