Both Encouraging And Mysterious

I often feel a sense of desperation among writers who are trying to give their newly published books the best possible marketing push. The How-To Information that's spun-out all over the place insists we need to promote, promote, promote, but it never mentions that bookstore contacts may refuse to call back, that regional publishers may bump your interview down to a local publication because "He said that if he covered every author who contacted him, he'd be publishing a book review," or that at many literary festivals the hand full of bestselling authors in attendance get ninety percent of the crowd while everyone else could have stayed home and cleaned or taken a nap.

So these posts at Pub Rants and author Ally Carter's blog on how Carter's book, I'd Tell You That I Love You, But Then I'd Have To Kill You made the New York Times bestseller list two years after it was published were encouraging, even though they can only offer theories about how it happened.

Note in particular Pub Rants' point about the book receiving "few to almost no reviews." The book's "success was not review-driven."

Also note Carter's point that the book didn't hit the list because of self promotion. "All this time I was home...writing."