By Erin L. Cox
Today, on The Los Angeles Times book publishing blog, “Jacket Copy,” they published a story called “Book Tour? More Like a Safari” about the joint book-tour of authors and couple, Bill Cotter and Annie La Ganga. While their respective publishers chose not to pay for a formal author tour, the two took to the road and traveled 8500 miles over the course of 27 days in a tour they planned themselves. Why? Because it meant something to them to meet their readers and booksellers around the country face to face.
In sharing their story, it brings up an interesting question. Is the cost of a book tour worth the money and time? Or, in this day and age of social media and the ability to be in touch with millions of people from your home, a better, cheaper way to reach the reader?
Having spent a lot of time on the road with authors over the years, there is nothing quite like seeing a writer and his/her reader connect. I think it turns a reader into a fan and does something that connecting via email/Facebook/Twitter doesn’t do. So, if I had my druthers, I’d always put writers on the road…but in a smart, thoughtful way.
Tell us what you think!
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Kathy L. Patrick
4 months ago
Yes, I agree, writers must be put on the road but not blindly. I think if authors are plugged into events and hosted like say a book club, there is a vested interest in the success of the event. As an author, I did a 27 stop, 10 state tour with my book club members in tow and book club members meeting me at the stops. I started over 50 more chapters of my book club that way and hardly a day doesn’t go by when I don’t hear from one of those eople that I met whether by email, phone, or actually coming to visit me at my bookstore.
My feel is if you stop authors touring, especially brand spanking new ones, sales are driven even more to known best sellers. To me book clubs are driving sales and helping new authors get discovered in a big way. We need a national book club convention where authors, new and proven, are sent to meet the “real” buying public. The old way is not working but why reinvent the wheel, just put a new spin on it and send authors where you know “real” readers are going to be.
And I have been saying this for twenty years, send authors to those small town venues. I had a book club member visiting New York City, walk by a book store where Tony Bennett sat in front of a stack of his books twiddling his thumbs. If Tony Bennett had been sent to my hometown of Jefferson, Texas, he would have had the whole town turn out and would have sold a ton of books. It’s time for New York to get off this vanity city book tour train wreck and send authors to “real” places where they will be appreciated. We don’t have all the attractions of the big cities so when someone whether a first time author or a celebrity comes to town, it’s a big deal. Could somebody at least think about this notion, afterall, isn’t it really for the publishers suppose to be about the bottom line?
Tiara wearing and Book sharing,
Kathy L. Patrick
Author of “The Pulpwood Queens’ Tiara Wearing, Book Sharing Guide to Life”
Founder of the Pulpwood Queens and Timber Guys Book Clubs
Joni Rodgers
4 months ago
As an author, I love to meet readers and booksellers, but I view the bookstore table signing as the tenth circle of hell. If the bookstore just posts a sign and plunks an author next to a stack of books, it’s going to be a drag. And what really adds insult to injury is the attitude that the dud author failed to draw people into the store. Kathy mentions the Tony Bennett event (not) above, and I once spent two uninterrupted hours talking with a Pulitzer prize winning novelist at a non-starter table signing. Obviously, that’s not about the authors.
If only all bookstores were as savvy and energized as Kathy Patrick when it comes to organizing and promoting an effective, fun, and profitable event!
Jamie Pohlman
4 months ago
I love, love, love having the chance to meet/see an author in person whom I have read and adored. My very first author experience was meeting Branden Sanderson, author of the last trilogy of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. It was at my local B&N. I stood in line for over two hours to get my book signed, but meeting Mr. Sanderson, Robert Jordan’s wife, and “Team Jordan” made it worth every second. I have since talked up the book to anyone who shows an interest. One of my dreams was to meet Madeleine L’Engle. Sadly, her death made that dream impossible. Please don’t stop touring, authors. Your fans adore you and even more so after they have seen you in person.
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Edward Nawotka
4 months ago
Author tours are wonderful when an author gets a good audience, but depressing as heck when they only get one or two people. Surely the ROI isn’t there, but the author tour does give the writer a chance to hone their speaking skills in a very forgiving environment. So many writers are making some money by giving lectures at universities, clubs, et al. it’s good for them to get some practice. Personally, I don’t often enjoy readings — frankly, I’d rather read the book — but this may have to do with the fact that by the time I get to see an author in person, I’ve already heard most of their good anecdotes/jokes on one of the many book chat shows I listen to, be it Leonard Lopate, Fresh Air or Bookworm.
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Gordon Durich
4 months ago
Writers on the road? Sure. I’ve seen the best. Peter Ustinov, Ray Bradbury, Sue Grafton…. there’s nothing like seeing the face behind the written word. It makes reading even more special.
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Toby Barlow
4 months ago
Yes, it can seem like a waste of time to go to Bellingham, Washington to read to a handful of people in the basement of a bookstore. It can even seem like a waste of money to fly to Santa Cruz and speak in a lecture hall in front of a bored and distracted class. But put it up there next to a week long journey on a Carnival Cruise line or the collective hours spent leafing through a copy of US magazine to see what Cameron Diaz wears when she takes out the garbage or the collective days spent sitting in a conference room discussing IAG research numbers on Tier II advertising, and suddenly it really don’t seem so bad.
Suzanne Arruda
4 months ago
My husband and I spend my spring breaks doing book tours. I do NOT sit at a table and wait. I stand, I greet people with animal cookies and postcards. I invite them on safari with my characters. And I sell books. It’s hard work. I’m tired at the end, but I do my job. At “events” I involve the audience in a game for prizes. I even sold 6 books in one hour at a Sam’s Club (my table was next to Turbo Tax). But the tours are expensive and I find it hard to do it all on my own nickel anymore. But I do connect more live than I do with all my blogging and tweeting and online networking.
Barbara On the Bookcase
4 months ago
I totally agree with Kathy. reading groups, book groups, book clubs — whatever they called themselves are a huge driving force and have a long impact in sales, marketing, and publicity. In our research, many of reading group members get recommendations from friends in other book clubs. Talk about word-of-mouth advertising. Book clubs are an important agent in saving back-list titles. And, they keep the joy of reading alive. Always a good thing.
simply scott
4 months ago
I would love to go on a book tour and travel everywhere and meet everybody. I can’t say that I can afford it necessarily, but I would love to do it.
Del Howison
4 months ago
As an editor, author and bookstore owner I feel that many authors are able to hold their own at a signing and others need the bookstore to make it a fun experience. I’ve been holding signings in my own store Dark Delicacies for 16 years and there is no experience like it for fan or signer. Even a signing in which only a few folks show up can be a posiitive experience.
EllenSka
4 months ago
18 years in indie bookselling, and I’m all for the intelligent book signing. For better or worse, authors today are not only writers, but also celebrities. Readers want an individual experience of authors they love, and they want to check out the personalities of authors they’re considering.
Local and emerging authors do need to work harder themselves, though, as the bookstore can only do so much, especially when we host a lot of readings. Being scheduled is just the beginning, and the author has to work their personal contacts, try to get media interviews in advance that announce the reading, and do their own promotion of their events.
At the event, please take time to READ FROM YOUR BOOK. Don’t just talk, schmooze, and answer questions. You need to generate interest in the book itself — not just yourself as celebrity/author — as a product worth buying. Readers are more likely to fall in love with your book if they have already fallen in love with YOU, but remember that you’re there to sell books.
Author appearances, done right (and taking into account the vagaries of weather and competing events), create buzz and promote the culture of reading, so they’re good for communities and bookstores as well as writers.
Francis Hamit
4 months ago
Most of the sales of my novel, “The Shenandoah Spy” have come from doing book signings. 16 of those signings were at Hastings Entertainment stores in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Texas. The local book managers have always put me in the highest traffic area of the store; close to the video return desk. I can’t stand for long period of time because of physical disabilities, but I do engage those coming into the store with a brief greeting, and talk to those who show interest in the book. We provide posters and bookmarks before, during and after the event. Those little souvenirs produce later sales. And people do come just for the event. One guy drove two and a half hours to meet me.
But those planning these events might want to take note of some of the things that those book department managers have shared with me about other authors who have appeared in their stores. Looking bored and disinterested does not sell books. Neither does wandering off from the table to look at other books on the shelf because you are bored and temporarily without anyone to talk with. Manners count. Bookstore employees, especially in the current economy, are overworked and underpaid and not really working for you. They are not your servants.
And the sales you make then generate more sales in the future. Hastings stocks my book on the shelves of their 153 stores, so when I travel I give them first chance at another signing. When arranging a book signing I never ask more than once if a store wants me to do an event. There are hundreds of stores where I can sign.
Rich Rennicks
4 months ago
I’ll echo Kathy Patrick and the several authors who testify to the value of author events. I think the headline of this type of story is a little too broad: old-school major publisher book tours may be less useful (the expenses of author escorts, plane fares, several weeks of hotels, etc. are astronomical), but targeted regional book tours can be extremely useful. If you plan them correctly, you can minimize overnight stays (and crash with friends/relatives — who you should be utilizing to get the word out about your events anyway), emphasize your local/regional connections for media purposes and build relationships with bookstores (as Francis Hamit discusses) and book clubs which will result in long-term sales and repeat events.
In my work planning book events for Unbridled Books (www.unbridledbooks.com) I concentrate primarily on these regional event opportunities. Bigger events at famous bookstores in major media markets can generate sales and win new readers, but they’re more likely to be successful (and are easier to come by) once an author has built up a solid following regionally.
The “book tours are dead” headline may be attention-getting and accurate at one level, but to give the impression that author events at bookstores, book clubs and book festivals aren’t good ways to introduce readers to new books is misleading.