Publicity 101

Units sold: 17
Amazon Sales Rank: #891,468 in Books

Bad News first.  No one simply buys a book they don't know about. 

Good News: First book review has made it to Amazon.  Written under an alias, but thank you Randy Smatthews.  68 people have entered the giveaway at Goodreads.com, and 31 people have put it on their "to read" shelf, although clearly no one has purchased it yet.

What I have now learned about publicity releases:
1) They are fact-based, I would say a summary of the book and its newsworthyness.
2) They should include a quote from someone involved.  They should not include testimonials, which are quotes from someone who has read the book and encourages others to do so.
3) Testimonials come from "actual" people, endorsements come from "celebrities."  Either way, they don't belong in a publicity release and therefore I need my "personal celebrity" endorsers to post their info in another way, say Amazon.

I have officially entered the Writer's Digest self-published book contest.  My entry is not official until I get them the book, but I am mailing to a location roughly 2 miles from my house.  Results in Oct.  Not holding my breath as that is several months away and no one to my knowledge has survived a breath holding of that length.

Once the press release is ready.  There are different services for distributing it that I am still researching.  Had I known how much work this part (promoting) was I would have started months ago.