me: I think I may write about how much of a book tour is living out the “writer’s life fantasy” vs how much of it is effective marketing.
Elvis: How about “how much of the book tour is not going from tv show to tv show and 4 star hotel to 4 star hotel, but instead is driving a lot of interstate miles to sit at a table in a bookstore and watch people go stampeding past you to look for the new Twilight novel”
Sometimes in our pursuit of publication, we fall in love with parts of our dreams. We develop these romantic notions of what the writing life is like. Imagine ourselves writing in a coffee shop, sipping our chai while writing the Great American Novel. We dream of getting an agent, getting a big book deal. We dream of book tours and signings with lines going out the door; of setting up tables with banners, stacks of our books, and a special pen to sign with. We dream of advances and royalties large enough to live on (if not necessarily of Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, or James Patterson proportions).
Sometimes we short circuit the dream, accepting counterfeits that allow us to go through the motions of the dream (falling for vanity presses or being poorly published) or don’t fully think through aspects of the dream. Right now, my big issue is whether or not to tour.
Keep in mind, the first thing I have to do is justify to my wife and kids why they will be without me more. After all, they’ve had to deal with my absence while writing the book. Once I typed “the end” they expected to have their husband and father back. Now I have to look them in the eyes and say “I’ll be back. I just need to jaunt around the country to promote the book.” And when I’m done, I will sit down and begin a new book, with a new round of absence. So in this age of author web sites, platforms, social media, Second Life, and all manner of e-industry, is a book tour actually necessary?
I’ll fully admit, I am quite cognizant of the fact that as a newbie author, if I announce a signing, most folks aren’t going to know who I am. I know the reality of such signings is that I will be sitting behind a table with a stack of unsold books and a stupid, yet welcoming, grin on my face. And I can’t just whip out my notepad and begin writing my next novel, because I have to be constantly making nice nice with folks. My dream cognizance also factors in my book envy should I be sitting next to Gary Braunbeck and Lucy Snyder, watching their long line of admirers while I twiddle my thumbs.
Seriously, this is what I think about.
So, what would I accomplish on my imaginary tour? Unless I sell dozens of copies per event, I’m not going to make much back in terms of my royalty to cover my gas or time, much less being able to get something to eat afterwards. On the actual productive side of things, I would sign available stock and treat the bookstore employees like the precious commodities they are. They will be the ones doing the selling and (re-)ordering of my books.
When all is said and done, I’ll probably take it easy, as in, I’m not going to live out of my car for three months traveling up and down the coast. I will make a few appearances in my local book stores to do readings and signings. Ditto when I go to conventions and I may mix in hitting a few local spots while I’m there; maybe even work in a couple stops with family vacations. I’m just not convinced that full blown book tours are worth the effort. What do you think?
I need to write my own blog post about this.
Having said that ….
About eight years ago, Gary and Tim Waggoner and a couple of other people had a signing at the Barnes and Noble out at Easton, the mall mini-city here in Columbus. We just sort of naively thought, “well, the bookstore will take care of promoting this” and I sat with Gary and Tim for the next couple of hours … the only person to approach was a guy who wanted directions to the restroom!
And I thought, “Wow. We’re not letting THAT happen again!”
And in the main, we haven’t. We’ve promoted all our events well in advance, and we’ve gotten decent-to-big crowds … Gary had by far the biggest crowd Liberty Books had ever seen. Standing room only, responsive audience, it was the kind of book signing that authors dream about. The key? Getting the word out. Relying on the store for promotions is a way to guarantee you’ll be sitting there twiddling your thumbs for long stretches.
It’s easy to go broke on travel/hotel costs — many publishers will encourage you to do book events, and might arrange them, but you’re on your own when it comes time to pay for gas and the Motel 6. So, the key here is to go to stores within a half-day’s driving distance (so you can drive home when it’s over) or to stores in cities you can drive to and then couch surf at a friend’s place. It also helps to negotiate with the store so you can bring your small press books (if you have them) to sell on consignment so you have a bit of money to go out to dinner with friends and readers and then put some gas in your car when it’s all over.
So, full-blown book tours are great for bestselling authors who have their publisher’s backing. Not feasible for the rest of us, IMO. But mini-book-tours (where you hit a couple of different cities each weekend over the course of a month or so) are completely feasible and can do a lot for promotions. I’ve seen Amazon ranking spikes after all of our recent events, not even counting the books that sold in-store.
There’s not much glamour, and it is a lot of work, but it can also be a lot of fun if you do it right
Lucy:
As always, thanks for sharing your experience. Very helpful reply to Maurice’s very helpful blog.
Nicole
Yes: I am not a professional author but am very interested and follow closely: all that Maurice and others I view as authoritative have to say on the subject. I view Maurice as an authority. (It may rarely look like it, but I do: to deny it would be like saying Loki denies Thor’s hammer-throwing abilities!)
Yes I’d do the tour, but I wouldn’t go too far from home unless the publishing company paid. Why wouldn’t they want to promote an up-and-coming author anyway?
I have in mind a much-listened to much-loved-by-me Michael Moore recording on CD of his book Stupid White Men; which was due for its first publication September 12 2001- the day as it turned out after 9/11! Nearly pulled by the company bcos of “the changed political climate”; it was saved by a free speech campaign by librarians! (Brilliant true story: if you don’t know it you’ll have to find it on his site or download the British version of his CD; at the beginning of it is the whole story. There was a brilliant frank interview of him syndicated on
Alternet recently as well; it told all about how he got his start. I am always v. interested to learn exactly how people got heir start.)
Anyway Michael claimed on CD that Regan Books attempted to kill his book nevertheless; by “restricting my book tour to 2 cities; 2 1/2 if you count New York where I live.” He circumvented this however by airing the controversy in the pages of Editor and Publisher; and by an appeal to his already extensive internet list. In the next day or two, the book became a bestseller. (Michael he a sly fox; who also likes to play itnaive; he is a combination of both sly and lucky, both wonderful Trickster characteristics; Loki would love him! Maurice will be satisfied to know; you who are suspicious of the mischievous too-clever-by-half!)
But the lesson I got from that is that a guy who had maybe 1 semi-successful book before that and was more known as a documentary-maker and TV rabble-rouser, was entitled to a book tour of several cities for a non-fiction book.Be4 RB got cold feet.
yeah, i’m really leaning toward some “local” book tours. i’ll do a launching event in november (as my october and december are pretty much claimed by this point) and, because we will then be in the winter, with the spring and book two, do more traveling to promote things.
That will be nice for you. Nicole Cushing’s (is your friend of this name a horror writer too? Brilliant handle, props if she is!) sofa-surfing idea seems to be a good shoestring way to do it.. Tell me, are there no major publishers who will fund a few visits to major cities? That Neil Gaiman used to talk about going on millions of tours/overseas jaunts: that was earlier in his career; he hardly had a big success before AG (nonsense, from a pagan point of view); he only did short stories and naffing comics! Was that only in the 1990s?? Early 2000s? Have publishers got that much more stingy? But it strikes me that more books are being sold than ever before..
How does one promote books on 2nd Life anyway – and who does it that way?
Tell you what you want! To do some outre thing to get yourself on a talk show! I might help you with ideas for that.. Lemme see.. say the Tea Party suck? Nah, too intellectual. Is Jerry Springer still on? Go on there the same time as the KKK is on and brawl. In knightly armour!
the short answer is “yes”. marketing dollars/budgets seem to have tightened. these days, book deals are even more like partnerships, with publishers wanting to know what you are willing to do to promote yourself. but where publishers might not pay, some conventions will pay to bring you out to them (thus i think neil gaiman’s endless touring).
i know a couple of writers who have promoted themselves on second life, even holding book signings there (which i’m REALLY puzzled by how they pull that off).
Yeah me too! If I had a better computer I might get myself an avatar on there..seeing as I like disguises! Have you got one? There are these asian sites akin2 myspace but where they have a mini-2nd Life type environment. I think they are mad cool but the US version of cywhatever failed. But I found a similar one the other day hosted in Australia.. Then Opera lost my bookmarks. So who’re your technology-conscious friends? Dare give em a mench?!
Ah so it’s the CONVENTIONS that pay.. like scifi conventions? ComicCon.. Is that still going on right now; it’s all over Twitter! Why aren’t u there?
so far i’ve had to miss readercon, necon, and san diego comic con. i will be at gencon, context, and world fantasy though. in fact, i think i’ll write about it next week.
[...] I did a blog on whether or not I should do a book tour, along come Mary Robinette Kowal with some Debut Author lessons: Signing stock for [...]
[...] April 11, 2011 at 5:11 am I know that I’m on record as not seeing the value of a book tour. I never wanted to be that writer standing behind a stack of books looking forlorn and abandoned [...]