I am a naturally shy person when it comes to talking about myself. I tend to talk quickly believing that people will get bored of listening if I go on too long. So when my novel, ‘The Divine Pumpkin’ appeared on Amazon US on Wednesday, I was suddenly thrown into a world of self-promotion.

 Now I was hoping to share the fun interview I had with Kim Larocque on her blog, but I have been defeated by technology. Search for her in Twitter – her blog is definitely worth a read. I enjoyed Kim’s interview as she asked me random questions such as describing myself with my initials H & M. It felt unreal taking part in the process and it was bizarre seeing Kim tweet the post. I couldn’t quite believe that I’d entered the world of being a published author.Pinch me.

 However, I am now consumed by the fear that my novel will get lost in the ocean of books already available. How do you get noticed? And here we find self-promotion to be the key. But there’s a fine line between getting yourself noticed and annoying people with ‘look at me’ tweets and posts. With technology, it can be easy to flag up your book, but it is just as easy to over-promote and get people turning away in their droves.

 I concentrated so much on the craft of writing a novel, a query letter and a synopsis, that I paid little attention to how I would manage things once I had a publisher. And now that is exactly where I am. Of course my publisher, Winter Goose Publishing, also promote me, I am not alone in that sphere. But I have to make an effort too. I know an aspiring author who refuses to have a blog, join Twitter or Facebook He is seeking an agent with the view that he won’t have to promote himself. I pointed out that authors such as Katie Fforde are on Twitter and have fan pages on FB. Some people aren’t prepared to listen.

 I am a little lost with the amount of bloggers willing to review or interview a book or an author the plethora of sites willing to promote you at a cost, and even other sites such as Goodreads sometimes has me lost. The point of all the above is to say, start entering the cyber world and get used to talking about ‘moi, moi, moi’ somewhat so it doesn’t come as a massive, nausea inducing shock when your book gets ‘out there’.

 If you’re interested in reading ‘The Divine Pumpkin’ then click on the Winter Goose badge and go to my page. There, I used every last second to promote myself!

 Happy Word Flow One & All