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'Go out there and grab them'

31 July 2006

'A lot of nonsense is talked about the way writers publicise their work. The facts are brutal: unless you produce the kind of assured bestsellers that will encourage your publishers to pay for chain-store promotions, you have no guaranteed sales. There are a hell of a lot of books out there waiting to be read (if you pause in the reading of this piece for a mere 40 seconds, another one will have been published somewhere in the world), and if an author wants his to find its readers, he has to go out there and grab them. I've been known to offer to go round to people's houses and shampoo their stair carpets, if they'll only consider giving one of my weighty volumes a cursory heft.'

Will Self in the Sunday Telegraph's Seven