Job half done

I was thinking of ways of being funny and clever and acerbic and veiled to do this particular blog...but I'm tired now, and so I'll say it in one long possibly inchoate sentence and trust that those reading this will understand:
How much is a new writer supposed to nurse her own book, yaar. I mean, launches went well, but only after serious worrying and nagging and 'setting' on my part. Now I am asked, for things to go beyond the big splash stage, that the book must be visible (which it isnt) in the southern literate metros. How, I'm wondering, do I have any control on that? Isnt that why I am err...the writer, and not the marketer of this book? Secondly, I am asked airily by several in the know: how come you're not getting it reviewed? Huh? It seems that it is simply not enough that the publisher sends off over 50 review copies to key publications. You have to then network and pester and cajole and pray and subtly grow some mystique around you (i would find it easier to grow a long beard), so that reviews/literary page people in these publications sit up, find someone to review the book, and then actually print that review before your grandchildren are born. meaning in real time. But I had so much good press, reports and interviews and big-big photos of self and Shabana Azmi releasing my book, all over the place, I whine, to the people who are asking me "where are the reviews?" Plus already 2 sir-jis called me asking about film rights. another lady called about doing a Marathi translation. But not enough, uh-huh, I am told firmly. No, no. If you want you book to really be read and taken seriously, you must 'ensure' it is reviewed. Don't you know anyone in Outlook? Hindu? Express, Age, Dawn, Dusk, 2-bit Rag, Hi-brow Rag, Snob Times, Snotty Weekly? I am now asked. Like I have really not completed the writing job. Well no, I dont, and I'm as clued in as the next guy, but if someone told me that writing a book meant first spending 3 years before that cultivating some old-boys/girls/transgender network to ensure reviews, I would have not written any book, and just stuck to doing the thing i love doing best, yaar - checking for ticks in that little pocket of my dog's ear flaps. You know the one, which god seems to have designed just for parasites to park themselves on a dog. But I digress.
Back to more doggedly irritating issues. So I send awkward little emails to a few people I know asking...er...are you having my book reviewed? Note, not: "Hey see to it that your esteemed publication gives me a damn good review." Just: err...are you having my book reviewed? Needless to say, nobody replies. And this, somehow, is solely my failing as the writer of 3 ZM. Not my publisher or agent's failing. Solely my failing. Other publishers too, watching this book, are reported to have said with curled lip: "But where are the reviews?" Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa, for not being able to get 3 ZM reviewed left right and centre. It's like you had a nice bonnie baby, but failed to pull the right strings to get it admission into all the topmost playschools which will ensure that she will get direct admission to the best B-schools, and so somehow you've been a laggardly parent!