Max Riffner

The Parlor

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Sucking at Self-Promotion

When assessing the strengths and weaknesses of myself and where I was headed in the business of comics, one of the things that was missing was self-promotion. I am no good at marketing myself still. I understand the great need for it, but this is where my midwestern upbringing gets the better of me. I get all “golly, shucks, gee” whenever somebody says anything good about me or my work, nor do I go and seek out such praise as actively as I should be. While I don’t think the response is inappropriate, I need to capitalize on it more because I’m selling a product at the end of the day.

When I had originally written this post back before the end of 2005, I was lamenting this weakness and trying to figure out how to compensate. Two days later, I was notifiyed by Chuck Satterlee about bringing Golden Boy to Markosia. Life never works out that well, does it?

It’s a great fit. I signed with Chuck at Krypton back in October, and it was obvious he is a marketing machine. He showed up with a giant banner, a box of free t-shirts, and a stack of his books. When the late afternoon lull came on, he got out from behind the table and started to hand sell his books to the wandering customers. He sold out of every issue of Smoke & Mirror and Of Bitter Souls in the store, including the ones he brought, and he did it with a great pitch on top of a very friendly demeanor.

This is the sort of man you want working for you.

Now, promotion and marketing will never be a strength of mine. Period. Sure I can work to bring those skills up to a competent level, but I’ll never be great at it. Trying to force myself into that role and expect perfection is silly. It is all about focusing on your strengths, making sure your weaknesses don’t get in your way and not attempting to turn those weaknesses into strengths. Instead of settling for competence, I have a whole company marketing me.

Opportunities are already being set in motion as we speak due to my new publisher’s efforts on my behalf. They can open doors I would have never had easy access to. If even half of these plans come to fruition, I will indeed be having a very good year. Until then, I’m very happy with what I have: a group of people who believe in my work and are willing to invest in my creativity.

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