Pre-publication book touring

[Lyn LeJeune]

Well, my book will be out in October, so I'm scheduled for two book festivals in New Orleans in November (New Orleans Book Festival and the Faulkner Words and Music Festival), and the Louisiana Book Festival in Baton Rouge. That's great, but as you may already know the whole purpose of my tour and selling the book is to raise money and awareness of the need to rebuild the public libraries of New Orleans - my town, and yes, 100% Cajun here. All the royalties from the sale of my book goes to the New Orleans Public Library Foundation .Do any of you have experience with getting the word out on things like this; it would help all of us who have books we want to market and will do so in the future.
Thanks.....Lyn LeJeune - The Beatitudes Network, Rebuilding the public libraries of New Orleans
www.beatitudesinneworleans.blogspot.com. I just posted one of my favorite Cajun recipes.

[Margot Renne Payne]

I first want to applaud that you are donating proceeds to the New Orleans Public Library Foundation. That should also be part of your publicity. Other people will want to help with this cause. The library will have contacts state-wide to publicize this event. Also, the festivals should be pretty savy with publicity.

Granted, the library where I work (as Director of Community Relations and coordinator of our author series) is much smaller, but I use every resource I can. All the authors should send bios--including a picture-- and publicity packets to the festival organizers. Postcards--if your publisher will do them--with the book cover on one side and event date, location, info on the other are wonderful to have. They can be left in businesses, libraries, mailed to special groups, etc. Speaking of groups--find out if the local public library has a book group and offer to visit. Some libraries are large enough they have several groups--and may have a mystery discussion group.

I've involved high school classes by leading discussions in advance of the book and they then attend the author's reading. One class had dinner with the author prior to the evening reading for the general public--that was with Mary Doria Russell. She enjoyed it as much as the students.

I have our local newspaper contact the author to do an interview upfront so the public knows who is coming and a little about the book & author. I've done radio interviews with our local university station. You could create a clip of your book to be read as a PSA. The local colleges & universities should be made aware of the event and even add it to their calendars.

Will you be a stand-alone author or part of a panel of mystery writers? Panels can be a lot of fun--and sell many books. Instead of being competition the authors draw more people and the interaction of the panel can be very entertaining.

Will you be giving a reading? Let them know you are willing --if you aren't already--and then follow with a signing. It is much more meaningful to the person buying your book if they hear you reading the story the way it is meant to be told.

These are just a few things I do for our author series. We are organizing our inaugural FESTIVAL OF THE BOOK, for September, 15, 2007. So I am learning new stuff all the time. Like getting corporate sponsors! Anything I can get from the author or his/her book rep makes my job much easier.

Let me know your ideas. I'd like to know from the author's viewpoint what you'd like to have done in the way of publicity. Thanks.

[Lyn LeJeune]

Thanks, Margot. I will take your suggests and work on them. It is very intensive work; much harder than writing the book. If you ever have a minute, you can look at my blog www.beatitudesinneworleans.blogspot.com and see the program I am offering. So far it's just me; I do a 45 min. lecture, read from the book, then questions.
There's a Fetival of the Book in Virginia. Is that yours? It is a big one.
Authors would appreciate help with publicity. Maybe a week or two before the event the library can put information our to patrons, and in the newspapers, chamber of commerce and if the book is of particular interest to a group like gardeners, perhaps the librarian or PR people can give the author that information so that information can be emailed or mailed.

[Margot Renne Payne]

No, I'm located in Greencastle, IN. September will begin the fourth year of our author series, A Conversation with the Author... I have the budget to bring in about 3 authors per year. I try to bring a variety of authors (various backgrounds, genres, fiction, nonfiction, etc.). This year--in April--I had our first poet. Kay Ryan. She was wonderful!

I also organize our library's book group and coerced them into expanding their reading to do poetry for our discussion, prior to Ryan's visit. A friend of mine--who is chair of the English department at DePauw University (in Greencastle) and a poet-- put together an anthology of some of his poetry, contemporary poetry and also some of Kay's poetry. They loved it! They were so against it and they all ended up coming to her reading and buying books. We will finish up our 9th year together in July with our first "Dinner & a Movie" night. We plan to read The Painted Veil, by W. Somerset Maugham, then have dinner and watch the movie version --to compare the book-to-movie. We skip August--although this year we aren't. Some of the group want to meet to read White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son --so we can work with the schools/community on improving race relations. In September we begin our tenth year as a group.

This fall we are planning an all-day Festival of the Book with authors, a mystery panel, first time author panel, graphic novelist, children's author/illustrator, workshops on papermaking, book art, craft tent for younger kids, poetry writing workshop for teens, poetry program for kids, a readers theatre, an oral history workshop, how to get a writing group started, music, a reception for local authors, etc. Book and reading-related activities for all ages.

This is the first time we've done this--but our committee is very excited about it. I'll start our publicity this summer with a SAVE THE DATE notice of the event in our summer newsletter. Also, I know the deadlines for the Chamber Newsletter so it will be in that for August, will get it in the state library newsletter, back to school registration, on-line calendar of events for the local NPR stations, anywhere I can get the news out, etc. And of course it will be on our website. I try to collaborate with as many groups as possible--makes my job much easier.

I try to do advance publicity, then some more about a month ahead of time, then two weeks, a week and even the day before. This time we will be securing corporate sponsors--and I hope to get the local newspaper (we have one) to be a sponsor and provide the advertising. The Friends of the Library group is sponsoring one of the authors--and he wants the proceeds of his book sales to go to them so they can use it for more programs.

I'll send you the schedule once it's put together. I have volunteers from our book discussion group helping with the signings after the panels and author talks! Our local independent book seller will have the books available for sale (I find out from the authors what titles they want on hand)--or the author can bring his or her own books.

I have a separate budget for the author series--and will still be doing that in addition to the Festival! And all that has to be planned so far in advance. I will be crazy by the end of the summer. We are also having a Harry Potter book release party, I do the teen summer reading program, order all the adult fiction--and work part-time, 25 hours/week. But, I love my job.

It is now 1:04 am and I want to go read the same 3 pages of To the Power of Three , Laura Lippman, that I read last night! Will probably have to read the same 3 pages tomorrow night, as well. Wow, I just read this. What a ramble!

[Lyn LeJeune]

Wow....what you are doing is wonderful and needed. I was president of a Friends in North Carolina a few years ago and it was so enjoyable. We had a bookstore and that's mostly what we did. There was a big "fight" in the country about building a new library, where it would go, who would pay. I guess making a library so political was a little weird to me.
Have a good read. Lippman is great
Lyn