First off, let's get the commercial out of the way. My new book SLAYER FOR HIRE releases today. It's a YA novel that grew out of two erotic romances I wrote for another publisher. Don't ask me how that happened. I've heard some YA authors are continuing their characters' stories into adult novels to take advantage of the market created by 50 SHADES OF GREY. So far, no one else (that I know of) has gone in the other direction. I tend to do things bass-ackwards.

Now comes the hard part: promotion. Getting my name out there and selling the thing. For me, that's even more difficult than actually writing the book. When it comes to social media, I'm more of a lurker. I watch, but don't participate. I'm about as anti-social as social media allows.

I'm not on Facebook. I'm not on Twitter. Occasionally I'll make a comment on the Absolute Write forums. I'd been dropping in here on Goodreads for at least a year before I finally took the plunge and signed on. I haven't posted a picture and probably won't. If you've ever seen a picture of me you'd understand why. Gak.

I really envy those folks who have no trouble at all promoting themselves and their books all over the Net. The ones with thousands of Facebook buddies, the people whose tweets are a must-read, and the folks able to update their blogs more than once a week. I have one (count her, 1) friend here on Goodreads so far. (Hi, Serena!) I understand I have fans. I wish I could acknowledge you, but I'm still learning how. Ignorance of technology is another of my faults. I know only as much about the laptop as I need to in order to write a book on it and send it off to market. That's it. I'm trying to customize my Goodreads page. I also have boxes in my house from my last move that I haven't unpacked yet, and the move happened six years ago, so don't hold your breath.

I wonder if Stephen King goes through stuff like this?

No ... I don't think he does. He doesn't have to promote himself because he's Stephen King. At this point, his books are his promo. Come to think of it, the big authors over at my romance publisher, the ones eternally at the top of the bestseller list, never seem to do any promotion that I'm aware of. They just write good books.

Hmmmm. Write a good book. There's an idea. Maybe I should give that a shot. Beats posting racy photos of myself on Facebook (double gak).

One last promo bit: Evernight Teen and I are offering a paperback copy of SLAYER as a free giveaway here on Goodreads. Signup ends March 1. As for me, I promised my one friend I'd write another one. Back to the real hard work.