How I planned my cheap-ass book tour
I’m taking a quick break from writing about narratives this week to instead talk about the business side of writing. I saw the following thread literally minutes after tweeting out about upcoming events I’d be doing next month to support my debut story collection, Homesick.
The thread is good and has a lot of wisdom in it, particularly that there are far better strategies for marketing your book, and with better returns on investments than goes into touring. My publisher, Dzanc Books, is a small press with a small press budget, so their financial support for a tour was minimal. (They helped in other ways, which I detail below.) When I mentioned I could write some thoughts about planning my tour, people seemed interested, so here we are.
Honestly, book touring was not my Plan A for this autumn. All the things in that thread are true, and made touring a low priority; I'd prioritized finding full-time work instead. That, alas, has fallen through, though I’ve found enough freelancing gigs to keep afloat (but you can always hire me!).
Having a book tour as a Plan B worked for me for a few different reasons. 1) I love traveling solo, 2) I love doing readings and panels, and 3) I have a lot of far-flung friend groups that are conveniently located in metropolitan areas or large college towns. Said friends are also happy to let me crash for free. I also got a small advance on my collection, so doing these kinds of events might make more of financial difference than it would otherwise. If any of these weren’t true, I don’t think I would have planned a tour.
Events
There are different live events you can do as an author.
Bookstore/literary readings
Conventions and conferences
Book festivals
Speaking engagements/paid workshops
I prioritized trying to find speaking engagements and workshops, because they’re (usually) paying and often come with a built-in audience. The rest of my tour happened around that. Book festivals and conventions both can attract larger audiences; festivals are supposed to be a little better for selling books/marketing directly to readers, whereas cons are geared towards professional networking. The big exception here, especially for SF/F/H writers, are comic cons: DragonCon, ECCC, NYCC, C2E2, etc., are all very much geared towards fans. The publishing tracks on them vary in quality, though, and just because you’re presenting doesn’t always mean you’ll get all the fees waived. With both festivals and cons, you might be unwittingly competing with more famous authors for attention.
Bookstore and literary readings are even more of an unknown; if you’re not famous, well-known in a local scene, or if there’s not a reliable core audience at the event or reading series, you might read to a couple of booksellers and the store cat. Even if that happens, booksellers that like your work will put in an effort to hand-sell copies, and bookstore owners that like you might give your book more prominent placement in the store.
My tour is a mix of all of the above. I’m doing two lit readings, panels at the Baltimore Book Fest, readings at three different book stores, and a speaking engagement and one-day workshop. Even if the rest of the tour is a total bust, the last two will pay the expenses for the rest. All the events are in places where I have friends and family to buy me cookies and pat me on the back if nobody comes — always an important consideration
Pitching your network
Like I said above, I prioritized events in places where I felt relatively confident that I could pull in some kind of audience. Not a massive audience, and I side-eyed the tweet about not doing any event where you’d sell less than a hundred books. (Though I do understand that with a big initial print run, selling 40 books in a day is extremely small beans. If you received a large advance, it truly might not be worth it financially.)
About two months prior to Homesick’s release, I started emailing bookstores to see if they wanted to host a reading. I found out quickly that three months would have been better — fall calendars fill quickly, since the lead-up to Christmas is the busiest season for book buying. I don’t know if this is true for spring and summer events.
I leaned a lot on my network throughout this process. Almost all of the events are with stores, organizations, or coordinators that I know. I’ve said this before, but if you’re a writer who’s just starting out, one of the most important things you can do is start making friends. It’s much easier to pitch someone you know than someone you don’t. I left the cold pitching to my publisher, who has a much larger network than I do, and already has a lot of contacts with indie bookstores. They and my agent also helped me navigate what conferences, festivals, and cons might be worthwhile to attend.
Some bookstores have events coordinators and/or specific forms to fill out. Follow their directions to the letter, the same way you would any other submission guidelines. (Having worked in bookstores, I promise you that their general inboxes get deluged in mass emails from authors. Don’t be that person.)
Before this, you should have: high-res images of your cover and a headshot, the synopsis of your book, its publishing details (release date, ISBN, distribution info), and why you’re a good fit for their events calendar. The bookstores I contacted were queer and/or feminist, so my pitch included details about how my stories center queer and trans characters and community, that they interrogated oppressive systems through a speculative lens, etc. Do your research and show that you and your work are a good fit with this venue.
The person coordinating the event can hopefully give you some media contacts, so you and (hopefully) your publisher can send out some press releases and do some outreach to publicize your book and the event. If you, your book, or your event is interesting enough, you might be able to earn some extra media for your book. That’s always a plus. At the minimum, make sure the event is publicized on your and the store’s social media, and on any free event calendars in the area. Reach out to friends in the area and let them know about it.
Travel
Travel planning is maybe the worst part of this, and made it feel like I was playing a game of four-dimensional chess.
The cheapest and easiest way for me to get to most of my events is to drive, since I’ve got an old Prius that gets about 45 miles to the gallon. I’m also an old hand at solo roadtrips. Nearly all of my events are within what is, for me, a day’s drive (6-8 hours on the road, plus an hour for lunch and stretching). The Seattle events are the exception, but the workshop I’m doing there comes with a travel stipend.
A couple recommendations:
If you can, get a credit card with good travel rewards. At the very least, for flights, join a frequent-flyer program on your airline of choice. (Southwest is my fave.)
Save ALL your receipts if you declare your writing income on your taxes. You can fully write off all travel costs, and half of your meal costs. I use an app that tracks expenses, which has saved me countless gray hairs. Other folks use a credit card or business checking account to track everything.
If you worry about climate change, there are programs you can donate to that offset your carbon footprint for travel. (Caveat: Is this going to stop climate change? No. Is individual consumption responsible for the majority of emissions? Also no. Eat the rich.)
Plan some downtime. During long travel periods, I always schedule time for what my family calls blorping: naps, trashy fanfic, trashy TV, crochet, drinking tea and eating pancakes with friends, going to a cat cafe or art museum, whatever can reset my brain.
Things I personally never bring enough of: moisturizer, thank you cards, face wipes, business cards, replacement headphones for when I inevitably lose mine. I also bring my own tea with me, since I drink ungodly amounts of it. Many authors also recommend bringing extra acid-free pens for doing signings — signing books with a leaky ballpoint isn’t fun.
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