In noting the novelist JG Ballard’s many defects – drunk, liar, humbug, plagiarist, bully, philistine, racist, misogynist – his current biographer, John Baxter, also berates him for being a self-publicist.
Doesn’t sound altogether nice, does he.
But which writers are not self-publicists? Only ones who don’t sell many books, I would guess. My sense is that Charles Dickens provides an excellent role-model in this particular field. Never knowingly undersold.
If we want success in this competitive world, we each have a personal brand to maintain, whatever we do.
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