A reader at the New York Sun on reviewers, sales, and marketing:

“I think the mistake is thinking in today’s world that reviews really, really matter when it comes to how well a book will sell. It’s all about the marketing and not the Times Book Review cover. Sad to say authors should have a marketing plan of their own and work their website, their contacts, their blog and everything else they need to become well known.

There are going to be fewer and fewer reviews as time goes on but there are more and more opportunities for author’s to promote themselves. We all know it’s kind of a mystery as to why some books become bestsellers and some don’t. but today an author also has to be a marketer….”

So – dear, long-suffering reader of this blog, it is not immodesty but pure survival as a writer that compels me to assert myself in cyberspace.

On the first book I avoided even a bio. On this book there’s been more of a marketing effort, clearly. The result is painfully convincing to me, even though joining the blogosphere entails a loss of privacy I don’t like. Still, so far, I’ve been able to live with it, except for one or two peculiar incidents, which I think probably had politics behind them.

A little marketing also helps prevent misattribution.
Contrary to appearances, none of this has much to do with personal style. The persona of a blogger demands that even recluses leave their caves and saunter out, even if it’s with a mask….