Catherine Jones writes

I can still hear my mother saying those words to me and feel the sting of shame when she uttered them – and this is at least forty years on. Now I am hard-wired into wanting to hide my proverbial light under that blooming bushel but sadly I know that in a world where 10,000 new works of fiction get published each year I have to get out there and help my publisher along a bit. 

To shift copies – even locally – you need to be proactive, and as many of you are like me, middle-aged, female, British and not disposed to telling people how brilliant your latest book is, you may want to take advantage of a couple of tricks I have learned by accident along the way.

• Be your own publicity agent.  If you write under a pseudonym use your real name or vice versa. Trust me, it’s much easier to ring up the local rag or bookshop and say ‘I represent Clarissa Muckspreader who has just written a wonderful book about…’ than to ring up and say ‘I would like to tell you about my wonderful new book about…’
• Help the bookshops by getting pieces in the local paper about you and your book. Remember that the ‘local paper’ should include the ones for the town where you were born, went to school, went to university, got your first job, plus previous places of residence etc. 
• Find a ‘hook’ for these stories and write a press release (individually tailored for each regional paper) that can be lifted and printed. (Local papers are notoriously understaffed and handing them a story on a plate gives it a much better chance of it being used.) If you haven’t got a ‘hook’, stretch a point: you write fiction, don’t you?
• Bookmarks and cards with your book cover on are useful marketing tools but use them wisely; enclosing them in your Christmas cards may well get old school mates buying/borrowing your book out of curiosity but inclusion in a writing conference goody bag may be a waste as it will be one bookmark/card amongst a score.
• Always accept offers of giving a talk/workshop even if you find it difficult to speak in front of an audience. The more you do it the easier it gets. And always have books available to sell afterwards.
• Use a sign-off promoting your latest book on your emails.

However, a word of warning; relentless self-promotion can be a turn-off. Be careful about using every email, every conversation as a way of puffing your latest book. Remember two golden rules

• Moderation in all things
• No one likes a show-off, dear.

Catherine Jones writes as Kate Lace.