The excitement of seeing my book in print has died down – just a little bit! It’s now overshadowed by the hard graft of getting the attention of readers. Publishers have whole departments to handle this and ready-made lists of reviewers to whom they can send copies. In my experience, though, they put most of their effort into pushing their established authors, where they know they are likely to hit the jackpot. On one occasion, I asked for the list of people to whom they’d sent my review copies so that I could follow up in person. I found that many of them had moved on to other jobs. Some of them didn’t exist. A few had, sadly, even died. So there is no guarantee that a publisher will handle your publicity any better than you would yourself.
I keep telling myself that as I carry out the – to me! – boring work of researching potential reviewers and readerships. I’m getting great reviews on Amazon, not all accounted for by my friends! I’m really hoping for word of mouth so if you’ve read my book, please give me a review and tell everyone!!!