It’s published, but now what?

Writing a book is one thing. Making people aware that you’ve written it is another thing entirely -- and because we live in a busy, crowded, hyperactive world, creating that awareness can constitute an even more colorful ordeal than the writing act itself.

Two new authors are fighting the good fight right now. M. Glenn Taylor, an English professor at Harper College in Palatine, Ill., and Marianne Herrmann, who lives in St. Louis Park, Minn., recently had works published by small presses outside New York.

Taylor’s “The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart,” a novel about an unusual Appalachian man who may remind some of the title character in Winston Groom’s “Forrest Gump” (1986), is published by West Virginia University Press in Morgantown, W.Va. Herrmann’s “Signaling for Rescue,” a collection of short stories, is published by New Rivers Press in Moorhead, Minn.

“I’ve been doing all my own marketing,” said Taylor, who printed bumper stickers -- “Who is Trenchmouth Taggart?” -- and business cards with the novel’s title floating above a mysterious-looking scene. “West Virginia University Press has been great, but they can’t put a lot of time and energy into promotion and publicity.”

Some New York publishers expressed interest in his work, Taylor recalled, but the subject matter -- his home state of West Virginia and its lively, little-known history -- ultimately doomed it in the eyes of the big boys.

“For about a year, I thought, ‘Maybe I should give up and write about Chicago and not West Virginia.’ ”

But then the saga of an odd man named Trenchmouth came to him, and he followed his heart. “I had no trouble writing it. I was obsessed. I’d look back at what I’d written and think, ‘Who wrote this?’ ”

Herrmann, whose stories are about families enduring travails large and small, said she has become frustrated with trying to market her work. “I didn’t think it would be so difficult to get a book into a bookstore,” she added. “It’s a losing endeavor -- even when you’re doing everything right.”

Major chains deal mainly with large commercial publishers.

People can order her book online from various sources, Herrmann conceded, but she likes the idea of strolling around bookstores and discovering new work -- and believes other readers enjoy that too.

“I think people like to go to bookstores to touch books.”

The Internet has made books new and old available as never before. Readers have to know what to look for and, for an author, that’s the challenge: Spreading the word.

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For more information, check out trenchmouthtaggart.com or marianneherrmann.com.