By: A.B. Timothy

You need to be your biggest cheerleader because cheerleaders are shallow. This doesn’t make them bad; it just makes them human. When is the last time you met a cheerleader and she said, “Hey, come to the big game on Friday, the team is playing!” I can’t recall a time that I’ve ever been pitched the idea of going to a ballgame by one of the cheerleaders.

Does that mean it doesn’t happen? No. But it does mean that you are more likely to get invited by an actual player than you are by a cheerleader. Like I said, this doesn’t make cheerleaders bad people; it just means you need to do it yourself.

You need to be the one on X, in the trenches, promoting and shilling for your own content and growth. If you have friends who are interested in coming alongside you and promoting you, too, great! (And make sure you return the favor when you can.) But you can’t rely on other people, who are busy shilling and promoting themselves, to be the main source of promotion for your material.

Building a community that supports you is huge, yes, but it’s also something that comes over time, and you can’t start with it. Having a large community will cut back on your need to self-promote, but even then, you will still have to do it. Even one of the biggest names in Fantasy has to self-promote; he has a podcast and a YouTube channel where he makes content to promote his books and brand.

The moral of the story is, don’t feel bad about self-promoting your own content, ever.

Keep up the good work, and know that if you build it, they will come.

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