The Benefits and Drawbacks of Book Tours

When ​Sometimes Art Can't Dave You came out, I went on a book tour that took me through northern California, Oregon, Washington, New York City,Minneapolis-St Paul, Indianapolis, and to St. Louis, places my publicist assured me, people were still buying books. :) The tour was great fun. I was on radio shows in the U.S. and Canada. I was on television in most of the places I visited. I recorded podcasts. And I read excerpts and signed books in bookstores. I met some amazing people that to this day, 11 and 12 years later, I call good friends. I even ended up briefly with a stalker while on tour. 

But the thing no one tells you when you're doing this publicity (besides the whole don't say under your own name at the hotel part so would-be stalkers don't find you) is that book sales may only increase just a little bit and that, depending on your book's subject matter, many people may call into shows to talk to you but those same people may not appear at the public readings. In fact, very few people may show up at the readings. 

I'm part of an international group of women writers secret FB group, and time and time again when we discuss book marketing, the poorly attended book readings and signings become topics of discussion. A lot of publicity has to go into bringing people out to readings and even then there's no guarantee of an audience since so many other things vie for people's attention and we all have so many other time commitments. 

Blogging, social media campaigning, getting a following on Amazon's Author Central and Goodreads are all key to getting word out about readings and signings. Also, taking part in new media ideas, like the Virtual Book Tour and Writer of the Week program by Universal by Design, is another way to do readings and have audiences find you by literally coming to you (instead of you touring to them). I read from Creating a Freelance Career last Friday on the Virtual Book Tour, and it was great fun to work with Melissa of Universal by Design/ Melissa is in Norway and I'm in California, but modern technology makes distance irrelevant, and it helps us reach readers wherever they are, too. 

So before yo consider spending lots of money on a book tour (sorry, publishing companies aren't shelling out for this much anymore unless you're a big-name writer), consider ways you can read and reach readers through social media, through podcasts and virtual tours, through YouTube and your own websites, and through your local community, which is ripe with venues and opportunities...and like the theme song of the old television show Cheers says, "Everybody knows your name." 

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