Author Ethan Canin, right, mingles with guests at a recent “Words & Wine” gathering in SeattleRemember the days when one of the few options an author had was to hit the road to promote their new book, crossing the country, reading at bookstores both big and small, connecting with readers in the hope that they will buy your book.
Well, it’s not that simple anymore. The changing publishing and bookselling landscape has forced everyone to revamp their marketing strategy to come up with new ways to sell books. Most major publishers now have an in house speakers-bureau and internet marketing department. The reading tour is being replaced by engagements and new technologies, like the LongPen and book video trailers, and from what happened on the season premiere of Mad Men, the television just might be the publisher’s next best friend .
Rachel Donaido’s essay in the New York Times Book Review, “More Bang for the Book,” looks at the growing trend of author speaking engagements. Donaido notes that the shift away from the traditional reading tour is a result of a new “market reality.” With the decline of the independent bookstores and the sustained disappearance of book coverage in newspapers “publishers are scrambling for new ways to connect books and readers without spending too much of their own money.”
Why pay for an author’s reading tour when you can target your author to a specific group and have them pay for the event.
Granted the book tour can be a gruesome experience. Jim Harrison tells us that the 19-city tour in 30 days that he undertook for his novel ‘True North’ “was ruinous to my health and sanity, what with airports being a cross between dog pounds and immense toilets.” and that these days he goes “out in public as little as possible,” He still does; however, three appearances a year, “to pay for my fishing obsession,” and rakes in $5,000 to $10,000 a pop, “depending on how difficult it looks to be.”
Here in Seattle, Kim Ricketts has emerged as a leader in producing a new wave of author events. Her company, Kim Ricketts Book Events, claims to be an “entirely new type of bookseller,” a hybrid between a bookseller and an event planner, who creates “events in a variety of non-traditional venues and seeking out exciting new places for readers and authors to connect.”
Her latest series, ‘Words and Wine’, which debuted in June, was created to “celebrate the written word, mingle with authors that intrigue us and to give you, the audience, an authentic and unique experience!” It takes place at the trendy W Hotel and for $45 you get a signed first edition of the author’s latest book, wine, appetizers and the chance to take part in an author Q&A session moderated by Warren Etheredge of The Warren Report. Ethan Canin was the latest author to be part of the series and from what he told John Marshall of the Seattle PI you might start finding wine and cheese at every author event no matter where it is held.
Canin says: “This was totally different from anything I have ever done…I’d prefer (it if) all author events were like this…A couple of glasses of wine help, and everyone buying the book is part of it. … This was far preferable to me to doing an event in a big hall with 2,000 people where you cannot see their faces from the stage. This seems perfectly Seattle to me…This was really the best thing I have ever done as an author.”
Then we have the miracle of Mad Men. On Sunday nights season premier one of the main characters, Dan Draper, is seen clutching a copy of Frank O’Hara’s book of poems Meditations in an Emergency. The result- the book skyrocketed up Amazon’s list of Movers and Shakers jumping up 6,436%! to #233 on the bestseller list and is now temporarily out of stock! Product placement as a marketing strategy is just around the corner.
John Marshall piece in the Seattle PI, Raves for ‘Words and Wine’