In my last post, I opined that a book should be ready for publishing only when the author is (reasonably) satisfied that the book is grammatically correct and tightly written. I also mentioned that I had been editing and rewriting Sleeping Dogs: The Awakening for a considerable period of time in order to achieve this goal. When I believed I reached that point, I turned to the subject of marketing the book. As I reviewed my considerable materials on the subject and further researched it at length, I realized just how time consuming and complicated marketing can be; especially if you're an indie publisher and you want the book to have every opportunity for success.
The bottom line is I ended up compiling a (thus far) six-page Word document in table format that has four columns: Date, Action, Status, and Comment. I'm sure it's still not a complete marketing guide, but it's a good start. According to this "guide", publication (relaunch in the case of Sleeping Dogs: The Awakening) is scheduled for March 17. Yep, St. Paddy's Day. That seems appropriate for a novel that's main protagonist is an Irishman. The point is that every day between today's date, January 9, and March 18 is filled with marketing tasks and follow ups. March 19 is plugged in as the date I resume writing the second novel in the Sleeping Dogs series. Note: I wrote the first 32,000 words last summer before turning to the editing and relaunch of the first book. I can hardly wait to get back to it.
So, aspiring writers, be forewarned. The writing is the easy part. The editing/rewriting and marketing efforts are where the real time and energy demands are.