Book Tours, Megastores and Big Snores
Live book signing tours have been a staple of book marketing for decades.
Here’s how they work. You schedule 20 or 30 stops at booksellers in major towns or cities across the country.
On the day of the signing, you sweep in past the hordes of fans segmented off behind the velvet ropes, read from your book, answer a few questions, sign a mountain of books and the occasional body part, before heading off to your private jet and the next stop.
At least, that’s how it works…if you’re famous!
If you already have some level of celebrity, you may, in fact, get a decent turnout (100+). If not, though, your turnout is likely to be anywhere from a few people to a few dozen, a few of whom will buy books.
For all but a few well known writers, celebs or weblebs, the money you or your publisher spends on the tour is many times greater than any royalties you’ll generate. And, the cost will very likely far exceed even the publisher’s far larger piece of each sale, which is why most publishers have stopped funding live book tours.
The real “secret” benefits are that you may be able to land some very local media coverage around the signing (and we’ve seen how, um, valuable that is already). And, nobody’s supposed to admit this, but if you sign the full inventory of books while you’re in the store, those books then cannot be returned.
Does this mean you shouldn’t do a live book tour if you’re not a celeb?
Answer is, it depends. If it’s structured as an old-school “signing” tour and your sole purpose is to make money selling books, probably not. But, if you’re larger purpose is to begin to build relationships with readers, booksellers, collaborators, partners and evangelists that will rally to support you in ventures beyond the book… maybe yes.
Or, why not take it a step further and instead of a book signing tour, host more of a roving series of hybrid reallife/social media driven tribal gatherings that’ll not only rally far more people, but present repeated opportunities to spread the word way beyond your immediate group.
Don’t just show up and sign books…meet up, tweetup, Facebook it and beyond.
Which leads us finally back to what really IS working in book promotion today…
“For all but a few well known writers, celebs or weblebs, the money you or your publisher spends on the tour is many times greater than any royalties you’ll generate.”