“The traditional author book tour is dead,” declares Book Standard columnist Jessa Crispin, suggesting that today’s audiences are getting hip to literature at readings set anywhere but a bookstore. As Bella Stander points out, however, Crispin’s methodology may be flawed. Sure, any number of writers can come up with a horror story about a bad reading at Barnes & Noble or Borders, but there are still plenty of non-conglomerate stores left where authors are holding successful readings. “It’s time to stop laying all the blame on the bookstores,” Stander says, “and for authors to take some responsibility for themselves.” Her advice? “Authors should go to places where they know they’ll have an audience:
- through personal connections (family, friends, alma mater),
- a receptive community (say, Milwaukee for a book on beer),
- business/professional connections (e.g., Seattle for a history of Boeing).”
“And those local connections must be primed,” she adds, “which is why authors must build up their mailing lists.”
(Full disclosure: I’ve taken Stander’s seminar on book promotion, and when my book came out late last year, I had several fairly successful events, including a signing at Borders—for which I sent an invite out to everyone in my address book who lived in the New York area.)