All Aspiring Novelists Must Market Like Mark Twain

You've written your great book. You have re-written it two or three times; polished and edited it; gone through the painful experience of sharing excerpts with some friends. Re-written it again. Now you "need" an agent. Or do you?
If you've written a great book, why do you need a middle man to take 15% of your earnings? You spend all those years writing it, not him. He's going to phone some coctail buddfy at a publishing house who will place it ont he sluch pile. Maybe the publishers will see the merit in the book. Maybe not.
Why do you even need a traditional publisher? In the age of the internet, you can go online connect directly to the book-reading public. Y0u can take charge of the entire process, inclucing marketing; and why not? Publishers may print your book, but don't relie on them to promote it.
Today is September 24. It is hot and muggy here in Alexandria, Va., across the Potomac from the madness known as Washington, D.C. It's a good reason to stay indoors and drink iced tea and read the newspaper (I am on vacation this week. The stay-at- home variety.)
Turn to the style section of the Washington Post. There's an exquiste coner story about published authors who must take to the internet and the airwaves to hawk their books nearly fulltime because the publishers won;t do it for them. Publishers spend marketing bucks on proven stars. The newbies must wage campaigns on the web and, in one case, sell books from the trunk of their car!
I found the article to be inspiring. I detest the demeaning process of agent hunting. In my view, they should be at my door begging me for my book, not the other way around. The Post article gives me good reason to leapfrog the traditional process, much like Mark Twain did.
Twain , once he became established built his own publishing house . He promoted his books by going on tour and telling his amusing anecdotes before packed houses, much the way potty-mouthed Bill Crystal is promoting his book, 700 SUNDAYS.
According to the Post, the new generation of authors build web sites, create "trailers" for the books much the way Hollywood create's trailers for the latest blockbuster, use the YouTube to conduct some readings, and hit the road like the Fuller Brush salesmen of yesteryear. In the instances cited by the Post, the authors sell books like the guy on the honkeytonk Ocean City, Md. boardwalk sells funnel cakes.
Here's what I do-- I save almost st every e-mail adress that crosses my electronic door. It's my prospect list. When I finish up my book, I will turn it into a pdf and sell it on line for a price that will earn me money but still constitute a bargain. After all, the reader should profit from the internet's efficiencies. You can't price a book as though it were manufactured the old-fashioned way, with costs for paper and ink,binding, shipping and marketing. Most e-book publishers are gouging the public. I'll offer my book for $3. I plan to do this with Onion Heads, which I initially self-published with Author House. This time, I'm going to use LuLu. I also plan to publish my new murder myster(FOLLOW THE LEADER) on Lulu.
He listen, if you would like to flavor my novel writing then e-mail me at mctaguej@gmail.com and I will send you Onion Heads for free. If you like it, you can send me $2; or I will send you the first to chapters of the muder mystery and you can tell me what you honestly think. Gratia, Jim McTague
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