Just to be clear about a point I've made in other comments (but which may have become buried in them by now): I distinguish between advertising (which does help to get authors' names out there and sell books) and the kind of scattershot self-promotion authors are increasingly expected to do.

I'm not familiar with what kind of push has been behind Andrew McCarthy's work work, but it sounds as though it's been more than scattershot self-promotion: that advertising was also involved.