Honestly, what were you thinking? You still have this old movie image of a writer who sits home sipping brandy with a bored look on his face while his publisher tries to persuade him to do yet another book tour across the country?

Listen, publishers do NOT send you on a book tour. Not unless you are already a celebrity. If you want to do a book tour, you will have to launch one yourself. Publishers will also NOT book you on the Today show, or on any of those glitzy things that you sometimes watch on TV by zappenstance.

Remember Jack Nicholson's character in As Good As It Gets? The moderately crazed recluse who wrote bestselling romance novels in total anonymity, the guy who was too scared to hit the streets, much less to hit a promotion tour, yet his writing had made him a millionaire? It's not happening. It happens only in movies, and that's as good as it gets.

Anyone who wants to succeed in writing will have to do tons of legwork. You will have to do most of your own advertising, literally and figuratively. Whether your publisher is Random House or Scholastic of Harry Potter fame, or a much less known house, if your name is not JK Rowling, or Tom Clancy, or Tiger Woods, the publisher will depend on you to lay the foundations of your book's popularity.

A sign of the times? Not really. It has always been like this, mostly. Stories about pampered lifestyles of celebrity authors have always been greatly exaggerated. Throughout history, very few authors have been able to live off their writing, and most writers saw their fame never expand beyond their own town. That's how it was, and that's how it will be. If you have written a book, you will be seen as successful, and as an expert, but rarely beyond your own universe.

Publishers know this, therefore they don't invest in efforts that they know will be wasted. They wish it'd be different. If advertising would launch a bestseller, they would spend the money in a heartbeat. Imagine, if it were only that simple, who would not happily spend a few thousand dollars on ads if it would bring hundreds of thousands in return?

Every now and then one hears writers complain about their publisher who won't spend money on promotion. And they almost always add, "If my publisher would have invested a little more in my book, it would have sold many more copies!" How many more? Oh, thousands and thousands.

A similar complaint can be heard about the book price. "Ah, my book is way overpriced. If they would lower it to below ten bucks, I would have sold many more copies." Or, "My cover design sucks. Don't they realize that a buyer judges a book by its cover? If only it had looked a little more attractive, it would have sold so much better."

And here's another one, "Why doesn't my publisher load every single bookstore with stacks of my book? Don't they know that stacks sell? It's all about prominent display."

Such is the attitude of the writer who ain't seen nothing yet. They are under the mistaken impression that once the writing is completed, all the hard work has been done. Welcome to the real world: the writing is only the prelude to hard work. If you want people to buy your book, that is.

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