Image Is Everything

How many writers work on their image? I just received a message from squidoo that said my squidoo lense was now in the top 5000 lenses www.squidoo.com/gracepub. This was rather surprising to me. A squidoo lens is free advertising. It is a free way to build inbound links to a web site. So, why are more writers not taking advantage of it.

Novel writers should top the list of all the public profiles from squidoo and MySpace to places writer.com and even Amazon.com review sections. Their name should be everywhere. That is how books are sold. People don't buy books today, they buy authors. That is why publishers are only interested in writers who promote themselves.

Freelance writers need to create a public image as a professional so clients will hire them.

However, writers never promote. Then, they look at people like me and say it is luck/talent/skill/____place your word here_______.

It isn't. It is just hard work and a lot of self promotion. If I didn't self promote then no one would take my courses or buy my books. I even self promote to sell my ebooks at www.todaybooks.com

Even bloggers can make more money by self promotion. I just don't understand why writers don't use their skills as writers to make themselves famous. It is possible, I've seen a few authors make themselves so famous on the web that mid/upper level publishers contacted them. Brenna Lyons is a prime example.