On Jan 19, 2012, at 5:04 AM, Stroup, Shelley A CIV SWOS N61 wrote: > Ray, > > I know this has come up before and mostly we joke about what we're going > to do to get you to come where we live, but I'm really being quite > serious when I ask how do we get you to come to a certain place. Is > there a technique that you've seen work before that we could emulate?? > > Thanks much! > > Shelley:)
I've outlined this before, but it's been a while so I'll go through it again. You start with your local bookstore. You find out who in your area has a good record of author's appearances. Now that Border's is defunct, it's either a B&N or an independent, or (occasionally) a local department store with a monster book section. Talk to them. They put in a request for me when I next tour. If it's a good book store, in a good book city, then it's possible. The publisher weighs variables. There are "locks," towns where they just sell a bunch so I'm almost automatic in going there. On the west coast I'll do LA, SF, Portland, and Seattle, plus they sometimes toss in Denver. I will never go to Salt Lake City, for example, because there's just not the readership there, and I've only been to Las Vegas once on a tour, because there was only one Borders there for a while with management that worked their butts off to bring in authors. I went to Las Cruses NM, once,because the local guy there guaranteed x number of books to get me there and advertised out to Midlands/Odessa TX to bring in people. I've been to Chicago a few times, Minneapolis a couple, Boston once, NYC once, Philly three times, Orlando once, etc. It's based on a lot of variables. I haven't toured in years for some personal reasons (right after my divorce I did 20 cities in 28 days around the world and didn't see my kids for a month, so I haven't done one of those around the world jobs since), and lately it's been for business reasons--the contraction of the brick and mortal book stores in the US, and the distances to travel. Anyway, that's the long version of "I go where they send me," so it's up to you to convince your local folks to make my publisher want to send me near where you are. Best, R.E.F. ---- www.crydee.com Never attribute to malice what can satisfactorily be explained away by stupidity.
