Rethinking the unbearable weight of self-promotion

I find myself tapping into Tyler’s fire constantly. Promotion isn’t a chore. It’s a gift. A chance for us to celebrate the effort we and others put into our work. We shouldn’t shy away from it or treat it like a burden. Relish it as an opportunity to honor something we worked hard to make that we believe in.

It’s also about promoting creatively. It’... See more

The labor of self-promotion or platform-building or audience-growing or whatever our tech overlords want us to call it is uncomfortable; it is by no means guaranteed to be effective; and it is inescapable unless you are very, very lucky.

I’ve ultimately realised that the best way to let others know about your work is to get rid of the word ‘promote’ altogether - it just isn’t a good fit for what creative people do. Instead, I like to tell people what my work is about, and let them make up their own minds. There’s no force, no pushiness required, and everyone involved can come away ... See more

Self-promotion makes me uncomfortable.

Maybe because I (read: most women) am not really great at it?

Or because I never want to sound sales-y.

Or because with software, it's always easier to justify tossing in one more feature than exposing our work to criticism.

if you truly believe in what you do, self promotion doesn’t feel cringe because the feeling that the world needs what you’re sharing trumps any embarrassment to put yourself out there. sharing is only cringe when you don’t actually believe in what you do/it feels out of alignment

The burden of self-promotion isn’t only on creative people, obviously; much like Albers’s 65-year-old mom, we’re all expected to perform this labor now. If we’re fully employed, we know that the comfort of health insurance and a salary could be gone at any moment if our company decides to pivot or lay us off. Tech platforms, too, come and go, and t... See more

But as the rapper Tyler, the Creator notes in an interview that lives rent-free in my head, promoting our work doesn’t have to be a chore — it’s an opportunity for us to honor what we worked so hard to make: