You Write This Great Book, and Then...

...you have to let people know about it.
Honestly? Yuck.
I'd rather people see the title (A LETHAL TIME AND PLACE--now, isn't that compelling?) and say to themselves, "The '60s? Murder? Plot twists? I have to own that book!"
But no. There are thousands of books and authors out there, clamoring for readers' attention.
So authors do stuff--promotion stuff.
*We do pre-release buzz: Little blurbs all over the place that say, "Hey, this book is cool and unique and you've heard of this woman if you're a mystery fan. She's gotten awards. She's gotten great reviews from all the big guys."
*We do specials. Amazon has a new thing: Kindle Countdown, and A Lethal Time and Place is scheduled for Tuesday, Dec. 3rd. The idea is that you get the book for 99 cents for the first few days of the sale, then the price starts to slide upward to its original amount. I guess the message is "HURRY! BUY IT NOW!"
*We do more. Announcements. Blogs. We beg for reviews (Please, just 20 words! You can do that!). We Facebook, Tweet, Goodreads, and onward. We get our name out there. We get our book's name out there.
But honestly? Yuck. I'd rather be working on the sequel.