Book tours for an author can be a lot of work — and a shot in the dark as well. What works, what doesn’t?
In Lessons from a 40-date book tour, the Church of the Customer shows us how to set up a reader driven book tour that really helps cement marketing of your work.
Essentially using reader feedback and some logistics, the authors set up forty events in forty business days. A little crazy, to be sure. But effective in that they sold almost 8,000 books in the time frame.
Now, this is tough work, no doubt about it. Open to criticism as well: some have said that this approach is simply waiving traditional speaking fees for required purchase of books. In a way, buying your own books through waiving of speaking fees. And forty events in forty days is not workable for many families.
But these negative items — legitimate as they may be — miss the point: these authors used their blog to determine a book tour. They asked their readers where they should go where there was interest. And their readers delivered.
Even if this approach does not work for you, don’t throw the idea out along with the sales of 8,000 books. I’d try and figure out how this idea could work for you in a different, modified form if all this doesn’t fit neatly into your life.
There are vast possibilities for using your blog to promote your work. A reader driven book tour idea has a lot of possibilities, regardless of format.
Scot
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