Where Are My Trained Monkeys?

I might have thought that actually writing a book was the difficult part of writing a book.  I would have thought that sitting my hind-quarters down and smashing the keys to form words and sentences for a long-enough period of time to actually create something one could point to and say, "Book!" would be the difficult part.

But it's not.

The difficult part isn't even the time when, after you've finished writing your book, you go back and re-read it for typos and errors and general semantic ugliness.  And then you do that again.  And then you do that some more.  And some more and some more and some more.

Just when you're about ready to pluck out your own eyes lest you're tempted to keep up flailing efforts to become an author, that's when the difficult part hits you.  Marketing.

Surprisingly enough, self-publishing a book online does not cause the world to immediately download a million copies.  Who knew?  While I didn't expect to become the next J. K. Rowling overnight, I expected a slight interest.  A minor interest.  A fleeting interest.  I don't think pity-purchases from your friends count.

I guess, if I were to go out and bury a million dollars in cash in my backyard, I'm not going to end up with a thousand people armed with pickaxes and shovels tearing up my lawn.  Not without letting them know there's money to be found.  So, maybe my book isn't worthy of a million dollars.  But it's worthy, I feel confident about that.  So it's on to the difficult work.  It's on to letting the masses know that there's treasure to be found and just where they can find it.

Can't I just sit back and be the creative genius, while my trained monkeys do all the marketing work?  No? They haven't invented trained marketing monkeys yet?  Hmmm ... I might be more successful creating teams of story-selling simians than I would be at being an author.  Will have to look into that.