Today we are excited to have Jane Tabachnick, Author of Publicity for Introverts join us for an inside look at her new book.
Janelle: How did you come to write the book Publicity For Introverts?
Jane Tabachnick: I’ve been working with entrepreneurs, product creators and authors for a while, and I noticed that many of them saw the value and need to do promotion and publicity for themselves, but there was reluctance. Some of them are self-proclaimed introverts, and others never thought about the reason they were reluctant to do promotion, though on further discovery, it turned out to be based on the fact that they were introverts. And some of them are ambiverts, which is something that I recently discovered that I am, which is a combination of both introvert and extrovert.
I realized that in my work that there is a need to help these people not just to learn to do public relations, their own publicity, but how to do it in a way that suits their personality and traits as an introvert. So I became more conscious of this in my work and thought that writing a book would reach more people that I am not able to work with personally.
Janelle: It sounds like an oxymoron – Publicity for Introverts – can you speak to that?
Jane: Publicity for Introverts sounds like an oxymoron, but it’s not really. The first thing you have to remember is that there is no one type of introvert. I am not a big fan of labels, however, many of the people I speak to are self-proclaimed introverts, so they have basically labeled themselves. There is no one flavor of introvert, so you can be an introvert but maybe don’t mind public speaking, however you are just not that comfortable meeting and speaking to new people one on one. There are thousand of different combinations, and there are many ways to do publicity, so Publicity for Introverts is really not an oxymoron.
The very definition of public relations, of which publicity is a part, is communicating about a product, brand or person to an audience or the public. It’s also about the management, the deliberate management of your image and of your message. We all do that whether we are conscious of it or not; what we decide to share on social media, what picture we decide to post, share with the public, that kind of thing. We are all doing it to some extent already, so I don’t believe its oxymoronic and I do believe people can learn to do things that they don’t think are within their comfort zone or just can’t imagine them doing. That’s the definition of stretching yourself, reinventing yourself and really getting at the great stuff for yourself and your business.
Janelle: How does an introvert do publicity?
Jane: There are so many different ways that someone can do publicity. So what it really comes down to is trying to figure out what is it you are willing to do. It really comes down to first, understanding yourself. You can do this by doing self-analysis – writing down your personality traits, skills, strengths, weaknesses, and figuring out what it is about doing promotions, or being visible or standing in the spotlight that makes you so unconformable. When it comes to doing the assessment you can also use tools like Myers Briggs, Disc Assessment or talent dynamics, to just get a better sense of your inherent strengths and natural personality traits and those which are more learned. Once you have identified your personality traits and what makes you uncomfortable about doing promotion, then you can really decide how to go forward. You can figure out which promotional activities you are willing to do, or willing to pay someone to do on your behalf where possible.
What I do in the book – I came up with 4 very simple questions to help you identify those areas that are of concern to you and to figure out how you are willing to proceed. Whether you are willing to step out of your comfort zone at all to start doing promotion and to start doing those promotional activities.
Sometimes it’s a question of fear, not of introvertedness. It could be a very common fear that is not limited strictly to introverts. For instance, public speaking is one of the most feared activities on the planet – feared by both introverts and extroverts alike, and there are other activities which people fear doing because they have never done them before. It’s something unknown and something they don’t have experience with, so succeeding in public speaking or whatever the activity is, is just a question of practice and becoming more comfortable with it.
Continuing with the example of public speaking – if you are an introvert and decide you want to start doing public speaking. You begin to practice. You could join Toastmasters; or practice in front of the mirror or in front of a friend or two. Then you might start by doing a talk to a group of 10 people, instead of a conference with 400 or 1000 attendees in the room. It works well to start small, get some practice doing public speaking and build up your confidence. The more you do it, the less scary it becomes.
