Book Tours: The Reality Vs The Dream
Back when I was working on my first book I, like many aspiring novelists, pictured the book publication experience as consisting mainly of lots of public events, bookstore readings and so on. In my imagination, I’d go to 15 to 20 cities, and my publisher would be footing the bill—putting me up in stylish downtown hotels, and I’d be signing hundreds of copies, dashing between interviews.
In my imagination, it wasn’t just adoring readers in the audience of these events, but my friends and loved ones, even my childhood nemeses showed up to apologize for all their misdeeds.
And, of course, as a result of all this IRL enthusiasm, the book would become a NYT bestseller.
We’ve seen this happen in the movies and seen a glimpse of it when super-famous authors roll through town.
But as I discovered — twice — if you’re not famous, you’re likely to have a very different experience.
The Reality of Book Tours
Again, assuming this is your first book, and it’s not being lavished with front-page reviews in all the major papers, the reality is that most of the people at your book events will be people you already know. So if you have 14 pretty good friends in Minneapolis, you can look forward to having about 18 people at your event at Magers & Quinn, or wherever you go (some friends won’t show, and some random people will show).
Most authors (including me) have at least one disastrous story where zero people showed up for an event (mine was at Book Passage on April 16, 2011). Big bookstores are even more depressing when no one is there.
As a result, publishers are reluctant to send debut authors on costly book tours. The publisher does usually pay for your flights and hotels. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt officially sent me to only two cities (Portland and San Francisco), but they paid for my flights, hotels, and in both cities they hired an “author escort” (i.e. author-babysitters) to ferry me around. In both of those cities, I also ended up having NPR interviews, which was helpful, but my events themselves were attended mainly by people I knew.
My excellent HMH publicist Summer Smith also set up other events for me in other cities (Chicago, New York, Salt Lake City, Minneapolis, Washington DC, and elsewhere), but I had to take care of my own travel and lodging and of course, there was no handler. Summer herself babysat me when I went to do my NPR interview at WNYC. I probably ended up spending an additional $3000 of my own money to fly around to 6-8 extra cities.
Tin House gave me a flat budget of $2500-$3000 to spend how I wished. My excellent publicist at Tin House (Nanci McCloskey) scheduled the tour, but I transported myself everywhere—again, I went to NYC, Chicago, the Bay Area, Portland, Minneapolis, and elsewhere.
The best situation for a relatively unknown author while on tour is to have a local book review or radio interview connected to their event. I had these experiences with both of my books—including a surprisingly favorable review in a Mormon newspaper in Salt Lake City (they do caution their readers that the book contains profanity)—and I do think those helped. But the events themselves were still sparsely attended.
The times I had a massive audience were at book festivals (again, booked by my publicist, and I had to pay my own way usually), where I’d be paired with a famous author, like Jennifer Egan. On stage with Egan at the Boston Book Festival, of course, none of the 1000+ attendees knew who I was, still at the end of the event I did sell maybe fifty books.
Is it Worth It?
Most publicists will tell you no, it’s not usually worth it, which is why they are reluctant to send authors on tour. If you get the local NPR spot, and the local paper interview, you’re still probably only going to have a few dozen people at the event. Maybe a bookseller will fall in love with your book as a result of you being there, and then you’ll sell an additional 20-50 copies.
That’s all very nice, but if the trip out costs a couple thousand dollars, it still doesn’t make sense financially.
Before an event, authors typically use social media and newsletters to promote the event and rally friends, family and friends of family to show up. Publishers and bookstores are doing something similar. And maybe these social media posts result in some interest that might not be there otherwise.
Also, you can ask a local author to do a Q&A with you to help draw more audience members. I had Sam Lipsyte do a Q&A with me in New York once, while Rebecca Makkai asked me to do a Q&A with her in Seattle recently.
Book Tours for the Rich and Already Famous
Once you are a famous writer, the entire situation changes. If you’re Ta Nehesi Coates or David Sedaris the event is going to be in a giant theater, and people can’t attend without buying your book. In fact, they often have to pay more than the price of the book, so you, the author, will be paid for your appearance AND you will sell thousands of hardcover books.
Not bad for a day’s work.
Things get kind of complicated for authors at that level, or even a bit shy of that level.
Someone like Emily St. John Mandel has both a lecture agent (speaking engagements) and one or more publicists. So…if you want to bring Mandel to your city, who do you contact? Good question.
From the “contact” page on Emily St. John Mandel’s website — notice how she has a speaking engagements agent AND a number of publicists.
The speaking agent wants to get Mandel (and by extension, themselves), the most amount of money possible. These agents get little to no payment if books are sold, so they don’t care about book sales, although of course, they try to make sure your books are for sale at the events.
On the other hand, your publicist works for your publisher and doesn’t care if you get paid, they just want to sell a lot of books.
In Mandel’s case, like many big authors from the Penguin Random House universe, her lecture agent works at Penguin Random House Speakers Bureau, which is a lecture agency within the publishing company, so (in theory) the division between publicist and lecture agent isn’t as disharmonious.
When I was an events curator at Hugo House, we could not afford to book an author like Colson Whitehead through his lecture agent. But we had no problem setting up an event through his publicist.
Someone like Mandel, is in the care of her lecture agent for most of the year, but during the months after she releases a book, she’s in the care of her publicists.
The mega blockbuster authors have a different situation, as I alluded to above. Last year, I took my daughter to hear Rick Riordan at Benaroya Hall, which was packed and sold out. Thousands of tickets, so Riodian was paid a lot for the event, which was also a promotion for his new book.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is your literary agent involved at any point?
Usually no. My literary agent Ayesha Pande happens to also be a lecture agent, but that’s an uncommon situation.
How long does a book tour usually last?
It depends on how many cities you’re going to. A big bestseller can result in months of events—several events a week. Usually, it’s best to try to get the bulk of the events done as quickly as possible, because you want to launch the book aggressively, with as much publicity and sales as possible in the first couple weeks.
Is there a way to get more people to show up for your book event?
Not that I’m aware of. I’ve tried various social media enticements. I’ve had beloved local authors present to do a Q&A. This is why publicists are leery of these things.
If Book Tours Don’t Do Much for Sales, What Does?
A post for a different day, but it’s called “off the book page publicity” and boils down to the author writing short essays, often personal essays, or opinion essays that are connected to the book. The aim is to publish many of these pieces as quickly as possible, and have one or more of them go viral. And then you might be invited onto national NPR (All Things Considered or Morning Edition), which really hits the book buying audience, specifically while they’re doing their commute to or from work. Appearances on popular podcasts can also help, but again this gets easier to set up if you publish a viral essay.