when to promote, when not?

I've been thinking about promotion lately. For writers the net means its part of daily life. We are supposed to promote, everyday (we want to to an extent.) But are there times when it's OK to give it a rest? If we don't have anything new coming out should we still be promoting anyway? I'm not sure what the answer is, but my reservation about having time out from FB was 'darn, i'm supposed to be on there to promote my last book.' I want to, I should, I know. I do support the press, but sometimes there are times life is busy, times when new work needs attention to be written. Unlike a piece of work, which will be finished eventually, when it comes to promotion no end is sight. How do we know it's done? We don't. It never is.

To a certain extent the bigger the writer is is, the more they sell, the more promotion takes care of itself a little bit. People review books they've heard of, sucessful writers have opportunities to do residencies, readings, have interviews, get plugged by their friends, etc. For little known writers though- how do we make people aware of our work? How can we promote? And is it OK to step away sometimes to move onto the next thing, the writing?

I don't know the answers to these questions. I do know being a writer is different than it used to be with the advent of the net as a promotion tool. Writers may once have been squeezing in time to write amongst daily life, other jobs, family and commitments. This hasn't changed, though now writers must give more time to promotion and still find time to write and do all those other things. How? And when is it OK for time out?