The Two Full-Time Jobs of the Novelist

My first novel, Every Last Secret, will be published 4.24/12. My publisher, like most in the business, would like a novel a year. So, in the past year, while going through the publishing process--edits, cutting, copy-edits, page proofs, etc.--I've also written and revised a second novel and started on a third.

However, my publisher, like most in the business, would also like me to build an online presence and promote Every Last Secret with book signings, talks, and appearances everywhere I can. So, while writing that second book and going through the publication process with the first, I've also been building from 0-1275 followers on Twitter, boosting my blog and Facebook/LinkedIn/etc. profiles, as well as guest-blogging and giving interviews on mystery blogs around the world and becoming one of the bloggers on the group blog, Writers Who Kill.

As I've been working at all this, I've been setting up several mini-book tours, as well. Instead of burning up the highways and my body with a massive blast of traveling right as Every Last Secret launches, I'm planning to do the Midwest at first, then later Texas (a tour all its own, that huge state), to be followed by Florida and the Southeast. I've set it up this way, so I won't be collapsing a couple of months after the book launch.

As I've worked at building an online presence and setting up book events, I have had so many wonderful opportunities flung my way that I'm almost overwhelmed by them all. Two things in this process have amazed me--one, that so many people are so generously willing to help, and two, that this is pretty much another full-time job. My admiration for people like Rhys Bowen, Joelle Charbonneau, Allison Brennan, Sophie Littlefield, J.T. Ellison, Lilith Saintcrow, who write two or more books a year and manage all this promotion business, knows no bounds.

I'm still working at this, but I've picked up some tips from  a couple of online sources. So perhaps I'll be able to make a success of the two full-time jobs of the contemporary novelist.

Wish me luck!