Let’s be clear about one thing: the first butt your book tour will kick will be yours. Book tours are hard work. It takes planning and effort to pull a tour together, and nowadays, it’s the author’s responsibility to orchestrate their book tour, signings or online events. Publishers just don’t have the time, money or staff to promote every book in the way it needs to be promoted to stand out from the crowd.
With the total number of new book releases topping about 400,000 titles a year in the U.S. (including traditional publishers, print-on-demand and self publishing), your book has a lot of competition. A great book tour can help you and your book gain essential visibility to boost sales, increase speaking engagements and help you sell the next book!
What a book tour is:
A book tour is a great reason to send out press releases about your book. It’s a reason to contact media in every city where you visit book stores. It’s also a wonderful way to connect with readers and to introduce your book to new people. A book tour also increases your visibility as an expert.
Book tours are also great ways to get to know bookstore managers and staff, librarians, readers and book reviewers. When a store schedules a book signing, it has a reason to order multiple copies of your book. Even if you don’t sell every copy at the signing, you can sign the copies that are left behind and the store has an incentive to hang onto those autographed copies.
Book tours scheduled for the crucial weeks right when your book first comes out can encourage early sales. Rankings on bestseller lists usually measure the volume of sales in a book’s first few weeks. Events backed by lots of PR and invitations to family, friends and clients/prior readers can boost those early numbers and help you land on the sales charts, which is at least good for bragging rights!
What a book tour isn’t:
Unless you’re already a celebrity or a big-name author, most book tours are not paid for by the publisher. Your publisher may help out by posting the tour schedule you put together on their web site, posting a guest blog entry on their web site or sending you some free review copies to send to reviewers, but most publishers just don’t have the funds to do more. If you’re really lucky, your publisher may negotiate front-of-the-store placement with the big bookstore chains (they have to pay for it) or send you a graphic of your book cover that you or the stores can make into posters. That’s about it.
Book tours, alas, also aren’t major media events for the big-time TV and radio stations unless you are already well-known. However, they CAN be a big deal for your hometown media, the local media in smaller cities and even your alumni publications from college or graduate school. So while it’s unlikely that your tour will make The New York Times or The Washington Post, your hometown may run a nice interview or your local paper may feature your book. You can also parlay a book tour into a reason to contact traditional and internet radio stations with a fresh new topic related to your book.
Book tours also aren’t a guarantee of big sales. Unless you already have an established series (and even then, not always), a very successful signing in a bookstore for most authors runs between five and twenty book sales. If you are selling your book in the back of the room after you give a presentation, sales can be higher than that. Remember that the real payoff of a book tour isn’t necessarily in the sales, it’s in the exposure that leads to higher overall sales.
You’re also likely to find that your book tour doesn’t draw a big crowd. Most of the sales you make in a bookstore will be to people who didn’t come just to meet you and have never heard of your book. That’s OK. You’ve now gained a brand new reader who has not only discovered your book, but they can also tell everyone that they met the author!
Likewise, a book tour won’t make you famous. However, it can raise your visibility, give you a great reason to get media coverage, be a fresh topic on your blog and web site, and add life to your platform.
View your book tour as a reason to create publicity, make personal connections and get to know bookstore staff and hear their feedback. When you realize that the tour isn’t really just about selling books, you can relax and enjoy your moment in the spotlight!
Gail Z. Martin
Gail’s brand-new book is The Thrifty Author’s Guide to Launching Your Book Without Losing Your Mind. Gail is the author of The Summoner, The Blood King and Dark Haven fantasy adventure novels in the bestselling Chronicles of the Necromancer series. Find her online at www.GailMartinMarketing.com and on Twitter at GailMartinPR and GailZMartin.
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