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Awkward But Shameless Self-Promotion: My Novels Make Good Christmas Presents

Gothic mysteries, children’s adventures, dystopian dramas… Something for everyone.

Simon Dillon
5 min readDec 9, 2021
Me lurking behind a copy of my novel Peaceful Quiet Lives. Photo by Author.

Like many authors, I struggle with self-promotion. I can’t help but epitomise certain British stereotypes when awkwardly blowing my own trumpet. The crass absurdity of it all gives me the urge to self-deprecate, even though I know deep down the only reason anyone might read my novels is if they know about them in the first place. I’ve written about this struggle elsewhere in the past (bring out the violins), whilst attempting to shoehorn promotion into that same article, but here I am attempting to be less coy.

All of which is a rambling way of saying upfront that this is a self-promotion piece encouraging readers to purchase my novels as Christmas presents. If that does not interest you, please click away now, with no hard feelings. Ignoring this article is entirely valid. Actually, ignoring any article is entirely valid, but now I’m waffling again.

A character in Paul Combs’s excellent novel Writer in Residence (The Last Word Book 2) says last-minute Christmas present buyers often pick up books. I suspect Paul’s personal experience also informed this scene, given that he ran his own book shop at one point. At any rate…

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Simon Dillon
Simon Dillon

Written by Simon Dillon

Novelist and Short Story-ist. Film and Book Lover. If you cut me, I bleed celluloid and paper pulp. Blog: www.simondillonbooks.wordpress.com

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