Time To Put My Feet Up? I Should Cocoa!

Come, Dance With Me - Mary Middleton Available now
You might be forgiven for thinking that, having finally published Come, Dance With Me to Kindle yesterday (already copies going very well) I should now be able to enjoy a bit of relaxation, a bit of ME time but you'd be wrong. Creating a novel, crafting it as finely as you can, that's the easy bit. The most difficult bit of all is the marketing.
Many authors, like me, live solitary lives and are very shy. I often wonder if I chose to be a writer because I feel safer and more comfortable with long lonely hours than dealing with the hubbub and chaos of business. As a self employed author I call the shots, decide when its coffee time or if I deserve a day off. The decisions are mine, the nitty gritty of plot detail and book covers, mine alone and that suits me. The only time I wish I wasn't so alone is when it's time to wave the flag and blow the trumpet when, what I'd really like to do is hide beneath the desk.
When marketing your novel you tread a fine line. If you sit quietly and whisper 'I've written this nice little story and I think you might quite like it,' then you will have zero sales but, on the other hand, if you stand on the desk and blow a trumpet shouting about your fabulous novel that knocks the spots off everything else out there, you will alienate people and also get yourself zero sales.  So, if you can't leave it to luck and you can't spam the pants off everybody, what can you do?
I don't pretend to have the answers, I know about writing not about selling but I can tell you how I go about it and only hope that my methods aren't too irritating. The internet is a Godsend to authors, we can sit at home and blog and advertise about our work, join writers websites, flood Facebook with awareness, follow other people's blogs, go on blog tours, etc. etc. etc. And while we do all this we hope against hope that a few people will notice, buy our books and tell their friends about it.
I promote a lot of authors on my Facebook page and anything I post is transferred to Twitter and I like to think that they do likewise for me. You scratch my back, I will scratch yours.  I think it is a good way of doing things.  You are less likely to upset people if you are not banging on about your own stuff all the time and, fingers crossed, if sales are anything to go by, it is beginning to work.
That is why, instead of having a day at the shops or lunch with friends I will instead be on here blogging and raising awareness in the nicest way possible - through friendship.  So, should you find me a little in your face over the next few days, please don't think me mercenary or self-obsessed. I am just a writer, trying to find my path through the madness that is out there.
Have a nice day :)