Wise words from Writer Unboxed

On my RSS feed (I heart Google Reader) I subscribe to a gazillion publisher, agent and writer blogs. For about every six posts I read, at least one of them revolves around the following themes:

Promote!
Build a platform!
Put yourself out there!
Get involved!
Establish a web presence!
Network! Network! Network!

Part of the reason I started blogging again was to satisfy some of these excitable essentials, and then the amorphous questions floating around my brain began to gel: How do I promote a book I haven’t sold? Isn’t building a platform for non-fiction writers? Get involved in what, precisely? And (for the record) I’m an introvert. I’d rather take a cross-country flight with an ear infection than network to promote a book I haven’t sold.

As I pondered these things, Writer Unboxed posted an article about website-building best practices and I began to wonder, what exactly are other unpublished writers promoting? What could I be doing better/more of? I commented, explaining my uncertainly with regard to promoting…me.

Guess what??? Those super-duper WU ladies responded by writing an entire article addressing my question!

They cleared it all up. Dude. What a relief.