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How To Prepare For A Book Tour

By on January 15, 2016
How To Prepare For A Book Tour - Writer's Life.org

No book tour is the same, however they are all equally important. Doing a book tour is a fantastic way to market your book to a wide range of audiences, boost sales and get it noticed. Despite what you may think, long gone are the days where a publishing house will organise and fund a muliti-city, or indeed, worldwide book tour, and it is now usually down to authors themselves to plan and come up with the cash for their own tours. Organizing a book tour takes a lot of effort, and for new writers who are trying to publicise their own work, it can feel overwhelming even knowing where to start.

However if you are up for the challenge, doing a book tour can be hugely beneficial and very rewarding to you both financially and to progress your career as an author. Before you begin, here are some tips on how to plan a tour that will suit your book, and appeal to your target audience.

Start in places where you have contacts

It may seem exciting to go to a new city and host a book tour there. However if you are not well known, and don’t have a solid following of dedicated fans it is best to start in places where you can guarantee there will be a few friendly faces in the audience. If you can organize your tour in places which are easy for friends, colleagues and relatives to show up, you know you will have a decent showing. 

2. Team Up

If you have written a book, it is likely that you have crossed paths with many people doing the same. Why not organise your tour with a fellow writer (preferably in the same genre as you) and do it together. Not only will this half the work in terms of organization, it will also potentially draw bigger crowds. If booksellers, libraries, and other venues who would potentially host your event can have two for the price of one (so to speak) they will be more interested in agreeing to let you use their space. It is also nice to have a fellow writer to share in their experience, through both the ups and the downs.

4. Be creative

Naturally there are some venues that are ideal for hosting your event. A bookstore is perfect as the people who attend will obviously be interested in books, and hopefully if it goes well, will be rushing to buy a copy of yours. However thinking outside the box is also a good idea. There are plenty of venues who hold creative events all year round, arty cafe’s for example are more likely to take a punt on relatively unknown writers (particularly those local to the area) if you present yourself well and can offer a discount to their customers on any sales. While traditionally you will introduce your book, read an extract, answer questions and sign copies, you might want to think about what else you can offer. Make your event eye catching, interesting and fun. You could offer to share your writing skills by hosting a workshop - giving people an opportunity to learn and to share their own experience of writing could bring in a larger crowd.

5. Do it virtually

If you aren’t confident about organising your own book tour, or don’t have the time or money to do so, why not try a virtual tour? To do this you still need to plan well in advance. Contact bloggers, set up Q & A’s and offer to give copies of your book away to those who would be happy to review it.

Remember whatever kind of book tour you have, it is important to do it properly. Make sure you have a great proposal to send to those who might be interested in hosting your event. Reply to any responses promptly and make sure you schedule all your events properly and prepare yourself well. Before you start create a list of all possible venues you could use, writers you might be able to team up with and other potential ways to market your book. Gather all these together and create a plan from here. When you start looking you will realise the opportunities to promote your book are endless, and if you are dedicated to its success you will want to take advantage of as many of these as you possibly can.

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