I'm good at this........right?

For anyone who has ever said they love my writing and asked me why I have not had my book published yet; for those who have told me I am one of the best singers they ever heard and wondered aloud why I never became Reba McIntyre – I have the answer.


I am an idiot.

When it comes to marketing myself, I am absolutely incompetent.

Case in point, my guru.com profile. They asked for a tag line to post on my page. This threw me into total panic. I’d just written several chapters for the current manuscript I’m working on. I’d blogged, written a snail mail letter and had been writing all over facebook. You know – I was good and warmed up. The engines were revving and I almost broke my nose hitting that creative wall.

After 30 agonizing minutes of staring out the window, this is what I came up with.

“If you need it written, I’ve got the pen.”

Oh. My. God.

Yeah, that’s like, when I sat down with an agent at a writer’s conference in September and she said tell me about your book. My opening line was, “uhhhhhhhhhhh……”

I’ve always had a problem with any kind of self-promotion and I’m not entirely sure why.

I remember being on a lunch date in high school with a kid named Steve Ingalls. I was fine with him in class, could say hello in the halls and had the wherewithal to get a girl I knew to help set the date up. We got in the car and I was paralyzed.

“Where do you want to go for lunch,” he asked.

“Don’t know.”

“What are you hungry for?”

“Don’t know.”

“Do you want to eat?”

“Don’t know.” I did elaborate at that point. “No.”

I don’t think another word was uttered the entire hour. Needless to say, Steve lost interest quickly. Though I managed dates over the ensuing years, I always had this sort of trouble – speaking. I consider it somewhat of a miracle I managed to find a man who would stay around long enough for me to form an actual sentence.

When people heard me sing over the years, they loved it. I knew I had a gift, wanted to – and did – perform professionally, to an extent. In order to take things to another level, however, I needed to be able to promote myself.

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh……….

People lost interest quickly.

I have recently gone back to work for a company I was employed with a few years back. I’m very good at what I do there and enjoy it immensely. However, when a new opportunity within the company came up and I was offered said opportunity because, in the words of those offering it, I am, “very good at what I do and highly skilled,” my first response wasn’t, “sure, great, thanks.” It was, “I’m highly skilled?”

Because I didn’t know?

I knew! I did! Honestly, with that response I’m probably lucky they didn’t just move on down the line to someone else.

If you can’t convince someone that your product is unique and they need it more than they need the next person’s, they lose interest quickly.

Mark thinks I’m actually afraid someone will say yes to my books or my voice. I’d like to believe that’s true, because it makes me sound tortured and artistic. The truth is closer to my incompetent theory.

However, I will keep trying. Even though everyone and their brother’s cousins’ maid’s hairdresser is a singer and you can’t swing a dead cat without smacking a writer, I believe what I have to say/sing needs to be heard and people will love listening.

Is that too long for a tag line?