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shouldn’t be looking at yourself on Amazon at all. In
particular, avoid looking at the reader reviews of your
books. Some of those readers are nasty, vicious people,
and why do you want to torture yourself by reading a
lousy review of your latest book? Sure, you may fi nd a
really great review, and that’ll make you feel good … for
about an hour. But a lousy review will leave you feeling
miserable for a week. You wouldn’t volunteer to get your
fi ngernails wrenched off with pliers, would you? So why
let anonymous readers torture you on Amazon?
stop googling yourself
For the same reason, I told you not to look up your own
books on Amazon. Sure, maybe you’ll fi nd a website that
says nice things about you. But you might also fi nd a site
that calls you the spawn of Satan. So don’t even look.
Because ignorance truly is bliss.
learn to say no
Writers are often told to jump at every chance to pro-
mote ourselves. So we accept every invitation to speak
at libraries, schools and writers’ conferences. We’ll travel
a thousand miles, take three days off from our writing,
to smile at a gathering and sell only thirty books. When
you’re starting off and still trying to establish your name,
these are probably good investments of your time. But
you have to learn when enough is enough. Don’t let the
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