Chapter 130: The DIY Book Tour
For as long as there have been books there have been authors convinced that their publishers failed to do enough to sell their work. The authors have often been right. Few publishers will flat out tell an author that their promotional budget does not extend to them. Things just never seem to happen.
In the old days that meant no white wine budget for book parties, no travel budget, and certainly no great effort expended to book the author on a morning show, let alone Oprah or Fresh Air.
The world of book promotion has changed – the author tour is not quite the series of events it once was for most authors. And book parties, which vanished during the pandemic, have resurfaced as events hosted by friends with large living rooms and a tolerance for spilled drinks.
But authors still write books and readers find and devour them. The issue, now and always, has been connecting the two. For most writers this means going it alone. Writing is hard enough. Selling is a whole other kind of lonely. But if you want people to read what you spent such a long and soul-draining time reporting and writing, you want people to read it. Dammit.
My friend and colleague Samuel G. Freedman has seen both sides of the author divide. His early books – published a generation ago – benefitted not only from terrific reviews but attention paid by his publishers. That world has changed and to his credit, Sam has changed with it.
His newest book, “Into the Bright Sunshine,” was published to a rave review in the New York Times. But that did not assure Sam of sales, beyond the proverbial one-day bump that historically follows a glowing review in a major publication. Sam knew that if wanted his book to be read he’d need to hit the road. On his own.
Eager to know how that was working out I put the question to Sam.
“Why did you embark on this tour? \Why did you feel it was imperative?
“When you spend years on a book -- and I spent 8 1/2 years on this one -- you owe it to yourself to give that book every possible chance to find readers. And unless you've written a book with best-seller prospects and/or a contract well into six figures, it's highly unlikely that a commercial publisher is going to put a lot of time and money into sending you out on a book tour. With an academic press, as I am now, touring is just not financially possible, even for an author, like me, whose title was a very important one to the press. So, as a writer, you have a choice. You can be passive and all too often end up complaining about what wasn't done for you by the publisher, or you can try to help your book get some visibility. Doing a DIY book tour, as I have on my last two books, is one way of getting that visibility. Another is writing and placing as many spin-off articles from your book as possible, because there's simply no way of knowing, much less affecting, whether any given publication will even review your book, and, if so, review it positively.”
“How did you put it together? What's gone right – and wrong?”
“One key thing is to start working on your DIY tour months before publication. Even when a publisher does send an author out on tour, the plans and schedule are getting made a month or two before publication date. And that's often too late to be put on schedules for bookstores, lecture series, colleges, etc. Lots of speaking events are being scheduled six to nine months ahead of time. That's when I start reaching out, way ahead of time. And though I had initially feared that I'd seem pathetic and needy in approaching sponsoring organizations or venues directly, the opposite tends to be true. People who would blow off a call or email from a publicist are responsive to hearing directly from an author.
“Also, I look for speaking opportunities that have built-in audiences. I'm not a star, name-brand author. No one is going to come into a bookstore to hear me speak except in a few cities (NYC, Washington, Minneapolis, Chicago) where I have large groups of family, friends, and journalistic colleagues. So I approach museums, libraries, houses of worship, colleges and universities -- institutions that have their own loyal constituencies that will attend an author lecture because of affinity to the institution. Also, many institutions are in the habit of paying an honorarium, travel expenses, or both.
“Financially, my goal on a DIY book tour isn't to make money. It's to zero out, or at least not lose too much money. (And losses are a legitimate tax deduction.) By bunching together book talks in nearby places or proximate nights, I can try to get an honorarium from one sponsor, travel expenses from another, and so on, so you're not asking any one sponsor to foot a big bill. Doing this, I was able to be on the road for about seven months with "Breaking The Line" and five months and counting with "Into the Bright Sunshine."
“What can other authors learn from your experience?”
“Plan ahead. Keep your publisher looped in for whatever help -- for instance, pitching you to local media -- the publisher can provide. Do events with other writers. 1+1 definitely equals 3 in terms of attracting an audience to an event. Try to make your initial contacts with sponsoring groups or organizations through people you already know or through an intermediary who can make an introduction for you. That's way more productive than cold-calling. If you can afford it, consider hiring a freelance publicist to help you reach relevant niche markets. With "Breaking The Line," I did that for sports media and Black church groups. For "Into the Bright Sunshine," I did it for podcasts.”
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If you haven’t read our newest story, The Unlikely Posthumous Life of a Prodigy’s Typewriter it’s a terrific and moving piece. Diego Courchay tells the story of one of Sweden’s great post-war literary figures, Stig Dagerman, whose remarkable career ended at the age of 31 when he took his own life. His legacy lives on. As does his typewriter, which has all but taken on a life of its own.