Nobody used to care if an author was telegenic, or photogenic for that matter. You didn’t need to be a hottie or a hustler to be a writer. Just tell a good story, get it published, do a few author readings and hope for it to hit the best-seller list.

Except for blockbuster authors who achieved star status, the book business was more about getting attention for the writing than the writer. Most authors stayed somewhat hidden. You saw their photos on the back of their books, friendly faces in what looked like vacation pix taken by a relative, but you wouldn’t recognize them if they walked past you in the airport.

That was before authors were expected to be marketing experts. The author job requirements today are more than to be imaginative, ironic and understand metaphors. It’s way beyond the writing. An author needs to get out there and sell herself. She needs to create a fan page on Facebook, gather Twitter followers and update her website with new photos showing her at important well-attended events. She needs to blog regularly to niche audiences. And that’s only the virtual book tour.

In terms of face-to-face promotion, you still have your traditional book readings at book stores but also your author events with food and wine and theme party book launches.

It’s all about doing whatever you need to do to help keep your book and the book industry alive. Just as publishers and book store owners struggle to stay relevant in the electronic communication age so must authors. This means using all the tools to create your own buzz, including getting your teeth whitened and taking improv classes so you’ll be ready for primetime.

This is a new demanding world for the average writer, often a quiet, cerebral type, a happy loner content to spend days on end in a small room with a closed door, drinking cold coffee and dreaming up great characters and memorable dialogue. Authors do not normally aspire to be rock stars. On the glamour gauge they are of the scuffed shoes and comfy jeans style, somewhere near classical musicians and college teachers. They tend to look intense and act frazzled, perhaps from thinking so hard. Your average writer is not skilled at selling herself.

If she got the dream call from Oprah, she would be both thrilled and sick to her stomach.

But you have to do what you have to do. So before you even start writing the book you work on a press release. You take a special marketing class for authors where you learn it is not enough to produce a book, you need a brand. You learn what to wear on TV. No black shirts, no white pants, no sandals. And you support each others’ author gigs.

One I will be supporting this Saturday, Sept. 19, is the Sonoma County Book Festival which celebrates the local literary community and happens for the 10th year at Santa Rosa’s Courthouse Square and inside the main library. (Details at www.socobookfest.org)
It’s where authors, mostly from the Bay Area, get to do it the old fashioned way – read from their latest works and talk about writing with people who love books. (Disclosure: I’m not one of the authors but will be cheering on friends and my daughter and their new books.)

The book festival is a day of no hustle. Just people who write and people who read, the two most important ingredients for a book. It’s tradition and it’s free. And if you go and discover a great writer, feel free to tweet Oprah.

Despite Boomer evidence to the contrary, some people, mostly marketing specialists, still contend that after youth, people become stuck. They cling to the familiar. They don’t change toothpastes or cereal. They avoid anything new. But that is so last century, back before the likes of Facebook, iPhones, Twitter and …let me add, Zumba.

Earlier this year came the report that women age 55 and over make up the fastest growing user population on Facebook which made people like me want to give a high-five for being so “in.” Or did our joining mean Facebook was fading? Oh no. Boomers on board. Trend over. But, Facebook still thrives, as a homey blend of young people and aging groupies, kind of like a Bruce Springsteen audience.

It took me a while to sign up. Posting about your everyday life and aimless thoughts seemed so self-absorbed. But who was I kidding. I’m a columnist and a blogger. I’m already self-absorbed. Okay, but I am holding the line at Tweeting although I just read that Twitter, too, is being taken over by grown-ups.

For me joining Facebook was like going to a high school reunion, hooking up with old friends and getting to see what they look like after all these years. I’ve reconnected now with friends from high school and college days but my big score is finding a grade school friend from Hamden, Conn. who remembers stories about my family and the name of my first dog. She and I have now moved off Facebook into regular email so we can have more privacy. And we’ve even advanced to talking on the telephone.

Facebook is also a way of staying connected to popular culture. Not everyone thinks that is vital. Leave these new devices to the young, they say. But even if you don’t invest time and money in the latest trend or social networking gadget, don’t you want to be aware of them? At least enough to get the references in New Yorker cartoons.

One thing we’ve happily proven in all this is that technology is our world too. You don’t have to have a young brain or know how to type with your thumbs to play. If you can figure out how to reserve a library book online, you can Facebook.

And if you ever did Jazzercise you can Zumba. I know that’s a leap but trying out new moves is another way of keeping up.

We don’t want to be rhythmically challenged anymore than we want to be technically locked out.

Just as with Facebook, I came late to Zumba, the workout craze that combines Latin and African dance steps with good old aerobic moves. But I like the idea of mambo in the morning and the music alone makes you sweat. All body types and ages are welcome, at least at my gym, although there are definite differences in skill level.

The enthusiastic bodies in the front row are so sleek and agile they could be dancing on a table top in Rio with roses in their teeth. The rest of us are happy just to know our shimmy still works.