I'm such a wimp

It should be easy to promote something you believe in; shouldn't it. You just print out some flyers and hand them out, what can be so hard about that. Argh but I'm clever I am only going to target Kindle readers or at least this weekend I am. So you just go up to them on the tube or the train and say

"sorry to interrupt. I dont know what sort of thing that you normally read, but my novel is available for free this weekend, you might be interested to have a look"

then you hand them one of your well designed postcards and move on to the next. Easy peasey , lemon squeasey. Yeah right. In two nights of commuting I have handed out precisely 1 card and approached one other person who politely declined my postcard. Somehow the targeting thing just makes it all a little too personal, which of course it is. I have chosen you, specifically you now I feel self conscious. if I just stood at the entrance and handed out a card to everybody maybe it would be easier. I would be expecting that a lot of people would say no thanks or just ignore my out stretched hand of literary enlightenment, but when I try to target people the possibility of rejection becomes more of a personal judgement on my decision making.

"You thought I might like your book , why would I do that; its rubbish, you're rubbish, I hate you, now leave me alone creepy man."

Ironically 10 years ago I sold accident insurance door to door, cold calling. Rejection became part of the game and you got used to it, well actually I never got used to it, but I did it anyway. I believed in the product that I was selling but on the other hand I didn't really care if other people didn't, it was no skin off my nose. This whole novel writing thing has become intensely personal. I want people to like it . I want people to like me. If they don't like the book which I have put so much of myself into then perhaps they don't like me either. In the words of Bill Shankly

"its not a matter of life and death , its more important than that"

Well to me it is. Where's the rescue remedy or the Gin