Book Promotion Anxiety

So how do y'all deal with that pervasive sense that you should be doing more to promote your books (when you don't like doing promotion much at all)? The catch is that there's always something more you could be doing (like posting on blogs), but the more you do, the more time it takes away from actual writing, which is the whole reason you got into this gig in the first place. It's the endless hamster wheel of capitalism.

If anyone wants to chime in on what sort of promotion they feel is worthwhile, or how you go about balancing your promotion/writer life, I'd love to hear it. The hard part here is that to even get shelf space now at the big chain bookstores, your publisher either needs to pay for it (that's a dirty secret that I think many customers are unaware of) or your book needs to be selling like crazy. But if your book isn't in bookstores, how do you get it to sell? This part of the business drives me crazy. It makes me want to just go bury my head in a book, and well, write something.

BTW --I love the book trailer, Amy. I'd like to hear more about how you created that.

Cheers,

T.