I wish I hadn’t done that: Tales from the book promotion road

By Randi Minetor

We sat at the six-foot table in the middle of the Wild Birds Unlimited store in a small Connecticut town, and we waited.

The owners had invested in 15 copies of our latest book, our magnum opus: Birding New England, an overhaul and relaunch of publisher Falcon Guides’ Birdfinding series. The new format replaces the text-grayed pages and black-and-white photos of the original series with hundreds of full-color bird photos and specific information on where to find each species.

They’d also bought a plate of Italian cookies.

The cookies, it turned out, were the more popular investment.

Schedule a talk, not a signing

In the two hours we sat in this store on a Friday morning in June, exactly one person came in to purchase a book and have us sign it.

Despite our luring people to the table with the cookies, chatting them up as they munched, and opening the book to selected pages so they could see my-husband-Nic-the-photographer’s gorgeous photos, they walked off without a copy.

I should have known better than to schedule a signing instead of a talk. When Nic and I have the opportunity to perform—our tag-team presentations are filled with photos, tips for finding bird species, and funny stories from the road—the stacks of books dwindle as happy customers buy multiple copies.

Book signings with no talk, however, rarely result in sales for a midlist author whose name does not spark instant recognition.

Pay your own way promotion

In an age when 75 percent of all books are sold on Amazon, face-to-face book promotions have lost much of their power and luster.

Publishers only pay for book tours when the book has a chance of reaching the New York Times bestseller list. As a result, authors who want to travel to promote their books receive little to no financial support to do so.

We who write about regional nature, history, and other nonfiction topics can build our own book tours, paying for transportation and lodging out of our own bank accounts. We can even generate our own publicity for these events. Or … we can stay home and find better, more effective ways of promoting our work.

What doesn’t work, and what does

My first book, Breadwinner Wives and the Men They Marry, had the remarkable benefit of being the first book about women who make more money than their husbands do.

I paid to have a video made of myself speaking at a meeting of professional women. Sadly, it was scheduled for September 12, 2001, so it was attended by exactly six women. Nonetheless, I put together a snazzy hard-copy speaker package, built a list of women’s professional association chapters across the country, and approached them for engagements.

Not surprisingly, many of them responded favorably to my offer to speak to their clubs.

Also, not surprisingly in hindsight, not a single one would pay a speaking fee. Some did offer to arrange for hotel accommodations, and all but one paid for a meal (yes, one of these organizations would not even buy me lunch at a lunch meeting). I scheduled more than 40 gigs from Long Island to San Diego.

On one tour, I barely broken even

I stayed with friends where I could and took advantage of whatever meager hospitality these organizations offered. (This included a stay in one member’s home, where the shower door and walls were covered in black mildew so thick, I thought it was paint.)

I sold hundreds of books at cover price that I had bought from the publisher at a 55 percent “author discount.” Even so, the cash and checks did not quite cover the overall cost of the endeavor. Worse, I learned that the sale of books at such a significant discount didn’t count toward royalties, so in the end, I barely broke even.

I swore then that I would not be sucked into the not-so-glamorous whirlwind of a book tour again.

Put the focus on publicity

Since then, my book promotion efforts have focused on publicity, especially in print.

I create media lists by hand and contact newspapers and radio stations in the areas near the national parks that are the subjects of my books. With luck, such stories attract the attention of the Associated Press, which can take an article in the Kalispell Daily Interlake in northwestern Montana and spread it to newspapers in hundreds of markets.

This strategy helped my first book in the “Death in the Parks” series, Death in Glacier National Park, sell enough books to generate royalties in its first year.

“I wish I’d listened to my own instincts”

In spring 2019, with the release of both Birding New England and Death in Acadia National Park at roughly the same time, Nic and I received invitations to speak at libraries in Bar Harbor, Me. and Barre, Vt., with accommodations included.

What the heck, I thought, let’s try scheduling some other dates around these. I put together a road trip with additional gigs in Maine, Vermont, and Connecticut, and Nic and I spent late May and much of June darting from one place to another.

“I wish I’d listened to my own instincts,” I said to Nic as we drove away from the Wild Birds Unlimited in Connecticut, our last stop on the tour. Other bookstore appearances had been slightly more successful than in the past, but not enough to warrant the effort it took to get there.

So, no more unreimbursed road shows for me.

From now on I heed the excellent advice you’ll find here on Sandra Beckwith’s BuildBookBuzz website and blog, and I will work to promote my books via interviews, guest blog posts, and online promotions while sitting in my home office in Rochester, N.Y. It beats cheap hotels and countless tanks of gas literally burning up my book income.   

What’s your take on Randi’s experiences? Does any of this ring true for you? Please tell us in a comment. 

Favorite ways to promote a virtual book tour

By D’vorah Lansky

Over the years, and during the course of my previous six virtual book tours, I’ve promoted my virtual book tour in a variety of ways. In this post, I’ll share my five favorite virtual book tour promotion strategies.

Way #1: Get your virtual book tour promoted by your hosts.

Ask your tour hosts to announce your tour dates to their list as well as to their followers on the social networks. Because of their connection with their audience, this will raise the visibility of your virtual book tour.

When you make it a point to develop a relationship with your hosts, they will be more likely to help promote your virtual book tour.

Way #2: Harness the power of mini-posts to boost your rankings in the search engines.

Post mini-posts to your blog each day, and then post a link to that post across the social networks, letting readers know that it’s your virtual book tour celebration. If you use an online service such as Hoot Suite (HootSuite.com) you can post to several social networks with one click.

This accomplishes two things. First, it gets traffic to your blog from the social networks and second it allows you to have outgoing links from your blog to the blogs and podcasts where you’ll be featured during your tour. These outgoing links can raise your visibility in Google.

Way #3: Create a Facebook book or author Page and create interaction with your readers.

Facebook provides a wonderful platform for promoting your book. Creating a Facebook Page for your virtual book tour provides you with an “online billboard” if you will.

Facebook pages get a lot of visibility and when you post interesting content and encourage engagement with the people who “like” your Facebook page, your exposure can grow exponentially.

Way #4: Encourage conversation in the comments section below each blog post.

When you are featured as a guest blogger on other blogs, you’ll have lots of opportunities to interact with new audiences. Once your post has been published on a site, you’ll see that there is a “comments” section below the post. You’ll want to be one of the first to post a comment by thanking your host for featuring you during your virtual book tour.

Encourage your readers to comment by asking them an action-oriented question and inviting them to join in the conversation. You can then circle back and interact with readers by responding to their comments and answering their questions.

Way #5: Register your gravatar so your photo appears in all your comments.

Have you ever noticed in the comments section below blog posts that the photographs of the people posting comments shows up? There is a way to automate this feature and you’ll for sure want to have your photograph appear when you post comments during your virtual book tour.

When you post a comment, you’ll see a form to fill in your name, email address, and website address. Your name will become hyperlinked with your website address and your photograph will appear if you’ve registered that email address at Gravatar.com

What you do is head over to Gravatar.com and register the email address you’ll be listing when you post comments below your posts. Once you register your email address, you’ll want to upload your headshot photo and link it to that email address.

Which of these marketing strategies are your favorite? Do you have a favorite way to market your book or business? Scroll down to the comments section below and join in the conversation.