"Self promotion works" i do not believe this one. If you are any good, you do not need to talk yourself up, as others will do it for you.
I have a bit of the engineer skepticism about self-promotion, but to the extent that I have a positive reputation that continues to open doors for me, it is partially because I'm talented and largely because I have worked hard and effectively for years at marketing myself. (Only partially consciously at points. It turns out that helping people and writing well are both really effective methods of self-promotion.)
A better tactic may be to write tolerably and have someting interesting to say.
Saying "there's no way to get better" is like saying "once you learn the syntax of Java, you know everything there is to know about programming." It just belies your ignorance of how much else there is to know.
You can do that with programming since each choice you make gives a tradeof in terms of speed, complexity, etc. I haven't seen a book with a similar set of concerns with regards to writing.
If you write UI software, how do you know that you're getting better? You can use A/B testing, sure; but how do you decide which metrics to use? Ultimately, it comes down to taste: you look at one possible approach, you look at the other, you give them both an honest appraisal, and then you say "I like the first version better."
It's the same thing with writing. Write a sentence. Now rewrite it, removing superfluous words or changing the phrasing or breaking it in two. Which one did you like better? What's different about it? That's how you improve.
As for their being no books - pish posh, there're plenty of books on improving your writing skills. The Elements of Fiction Writing is one such series. I've heard Steven King's On Writing is also quite good. The best way, however, is to sit down with an experienced writer and have them critique your work.
Failing that, you could always go look at Paul Graham's Etherpad recordings of his writing process and see what he does.
>> that you can objectively measure whether what you are doing today is better than what you were doing yesterday and most crucially of all: what you need to improve.
Another approach it to re-read your writing and compare it to early work. Letting 6 months go by will allow you to re-read your work with fresh perspective. Compare to what you wrote 2 years ago.
Just taking the time to do this can make a huge difference in the quality of your writing.
>> but the troubble with good writting is that there is no good way to get better.
On Writing (Stephen King)
Bird by Bird
I think I do a lot to help others and I also write well. It hasn't resulted in much career-wise/self-promotion-wise. So I suspect it's a bit more complicated than that.
In general, people's attention is focused on themselves. It's pretty rare for someone to talk you up unless they were really impressed by you. That's why it counts for so much when they do.
I suspect (actually, I'm pretty sure of it) that self-promoters do better than the average person, and it's only when you're much, much better than average (multiple standard deviations away) that you can get away with letting your accomplishments speak for themselves.
>> (actually, I'm pretty sure of it) that self-promoters do better than the average person
In many cases self-promotion seems to be their main strength.
No. Do not depend on people to do this for you. I've made this mistake.
A few years ago I had a series of weak and bad managers; the review process where I work involves a "stack ranking" system where managers go to bat for you and people are ordered. (I know, it sucks. I don't have control over that, and aside from this I rather like where i work).
Weak manager = bad review. You get ranked low and a review is customized for that.
Depending on your environment, self promotion is survival. If you are in a tank with sharks, you do not want to be a tuna.
(Not entirely kidding. "Awesome" is a word that has been applied to me repeatedly by some folks but I find that other folks really just think I have a huge ego and am all talk. I have never found a direct way around this. It just takes time to prove stuff that others think is 'too good to be true'.)