I would make a lousy prostitute.

This is good news to my parents, of course. I’m sure they’re glad my streetwalking skills aren’t up to snuff.

Hooker analogy aside, I need to figure out how to market myself. Shaking a leg at a passing Porsche doesn’t produce many writing gigs. Unless the cops catch me soliciting myself, and I spend a few years in jail and then write a tell-all…hmm.

I’m not particularly good at tooting my own horn. My cover letters probably aren’t that bad; they’ve netted me three traditional, full-time jobs, and I’ve picked up a couple of freelance clients. But I’ve got two finished novels that I won’t even sub because I hate writing query letters (stupid, I know). “I’m so awesome, hire me because of this, this and this, see links here” is just…ugh.

However, if I’m to manage this self-employment thing, I need to find clients. And that, more often than not, involves cover letters. I have a couple of templates that I tweak as necessary, and I try to find new clients a couple times a week. But I need more eggs for my baskets (or baskets for eggs? Or maybe I need chickens first?) and I really need to get over this aversion to promoting myself.

To that end, Mom ordered The Well-Fed Writer for me off Amazon, which I will peek at. I have a few other “make a living as a freelance [whatever]” on my shelf — can’t say I didn’t start researching this gig — should I be taking notes? Hmm.

In the interest of throwing my name all over the Internet expanding my horizons, I’m contemplating a Twitter account. I’m presently looking at the main page with some trepidation. It doesn’t help that just about every variation of “Suz” is taken, including “thesuz,” “the realsuz” (which means there’s a fake Suz out there, somewhere) and even “suztastic,” which I thought was a made-up word.

Granted, I don’t need to be “Suz” in my tweets. I’m just going for consistency here. Building an identity or something. I should probably look into a website, too, if only to promote my writing better. I threw together a tiny site for my editing service when I first set out, but I think I’m drifting away from editing, aiming myself at more writing-related projects.

Long story short: I need to learn to market myself effectively. I am putting off doing this by blogging. I shall now cease this procrastination activity.