Last Friday I told a first-time author that the effort of writing is nothing compared to the work authors have to do once the thing is published. The economics of publishing are such that authors must get involved with their book's promotion -- or hire someone to do it for them.These efforts generally include cleaning existing mailing lists, building new mailing lists, writing/rewriting promotional copy, tracking down cover endorsements, mailing out comp copies, researching and booking speaking gigs...the list goes on and on.
In reality, waiting until after publication to do most of this is too late, so now that I've signed off on 2nd pages, said yes to great cover art, and tweaked some cover copy, I'm morphing from author to marketing communications pro on my book's behalf.
According to my calculations, I've already plowed 10-12 hours into reviewing and revising and significantly expanding my publisher's media list. It's slow going even though I know what I'm doing. Could be worse, I could be stuck with dial-up instead of DSL. And to think I once built media lists by flipping through pages in Bacon's. Yipes!
Ah the human capacity to forget pain. This is what enables women to have more than one child, more than one marriage and, in my case, more than one published book.
