Number 1 Rule of Marketing

I've been gone for a month, plus I let things slide for a couple weeks before I left for Europe. I just finished looking at my recent sales and it confirmed the ironclad rule of marketing:

If you do nothing, nothing will happen.

Books don't sell themselves. At least they don't build increasing sales without a boost. Actually, my sales held up remarkably well, but a slight downward trend was obvious when the numbers were examined carefully. It didn't surprise me, but many writers think they only have to shove a book out onto the marketplace and hoards of readers will gobble them up. Here's the problem: Amazon lists over 30 million books and released over 128,000 in the last 30 days. That's a pretty crowded field. An author has to do something to get noticed. So ... I'm scheduling events, dedicating a couple hours a day to social network marketing, and running an advertisement in True West. I'm confident I'll have things moving pretty good by the holiday buying season.