Lessons Learned from a DIY Book Tour

As I write the first draft of this post, I’m on a plane heading home from North Carolina, where I did readings from my debut book, One Size Fits None: A Farm Girl’s Search for the Promise of Regenerative Agriculture. Now that I’m somewhere in the middle of my self-imposed tour, I’m glad Mary Sheffield-Gentry asked me to pause and reflect on what is a brand new experience for me.

Here are some things this amateur-hoping-to-become-a-pro has learned:

Make a plan and start early. Unless you are a proven best-selling author, your press will not send you on a tour (bummer). That means you’re in charge, which can be daunting or liberating. I’m choosing to see it as liberating because I can set my own schedule and embrace my tendency to want to control/plan everything book-related anyway.

Think about how much traveling you can afford, how often you can handle appearing in public, and how much time you will be able to devote not only to the readings, but also to the much heavier workload of securing, planning, promoting, and preparing for those readings. I did not anticipate how much time I would need to spend just on sending and answering emails involved with my book tour, for example.

Contact bookstores three to six months before you want to read there. Universities require more lead time; if you want to read sometime in the fall 2019/spring 2020 school year, for example, start reaching out in early 2019, preferably before. Applications for literary festivals and book festivals are due anywhere from a year to six months before the actual festival.

Another thing: a book tour doesn’t have to be a line-up of back-to-back readings that takes you away from home for weeks at a time. I scheduled two to four events per month for the first four months after my book appeared, and I am working to arrange a few more for the rest of the year. A book tour also doesn’t have to be travel-oriented. You can do a blog tour (asking prominent book bloggers to review the book) or a radio tour, and arrange for author interviews on important book-related sites, like I did here.

Partner with someone local. Bookstores want to know your reading will bring a crowd, and inviting someone from the community to participate will help make that happen. For my Asheville event, I asked Dr. Mary Saunders Bulan, professor of environmental studies at Warren Wilson College (an institution just outside the city), to join me “in conversation.” She interviewed me about the book in front of a live audience, and I also did a quick reading. Look to local writers, professionals, and other people whose work coincides with yours somehow. Ask bookstores about their book clubs, too; you might be able to get a club to read your book and host you for a discussion, as I’m doing at The Book Cellar in Lake Worth in April.

Another option for partnerships is community organizations. When I wanted to put something together in Tampa, for example, I reached out to The Sustany Foundation, a local group working to advance sustainable agriculture initiatives. They agreed to make my reading an official Sustany Foundation event, invited their members, and did much-needed promotion. In Greensboro, I put dual strategies to the test by being in conversation with local environmental writer Lee Zacharias and asking Green Drinks Greensboro, a group of environmentally minded people, to have the event serve as one of their monthly gatherings—and I ended up with an engaged group of 15-20 people, which I’ve learned is a decent turnout for a relatively unknown new writer.

Whether or not you partner with a person or organization, always reach out to local groups, institutions, universities, and the like to inform them about your event. Do some research to find out who is likely to be interested in your book.

Think outside the bookstore box. Yes, bookstores are great places to read—but they aren’t the only venues. People love the option of enjoying a drink or some food while you talk, so consider places that offer one or both. I held my book launch party at a brewery with a history of supporting the arts, and it was amazing! Think, too, about places that tie in with your writing somehow—a store, a public place, anywhere that makes sense. In Tampa, I read at an independently-owned wine shop specializing in organic and natural wines, which connected with my book’s argument for regenerative agriculture. Don’t forget about libraries, too.

University readings are a bit more difficult to land, but definitely try because they help you establish and maintain important connections with writers who also teach. Approach your alma mater first, but also write to other universities with a reading series or programs that complement your work. In the coming weeks, I plan to identify and then reach out to university English departments that focus on research writing, environmental writing, and literary journalism and see if they would be interested in bringing me to their campus. Wish me luck!

Be prepared for rejection. For every “yes” I get, I have received at least ten “no’s.” Most people you query about a reading either won’t answer or will decline. That is normal, so do not get discouraged. Another thing: be prepared for readings that go horribly. By that I mean no one shows up. This, too, is normal, even for writers who are well known.

That said, do your best not to set yourself up to fail. Do readings in places where you have connections and people you know, and promote the heck out of events in places where you lack these advantages. If you have a few spare bucks, consider doing some advertising on social media. Share everything you schedule with your publicist so he/she can alert local media.

In closing and in the spirit of continued promotion, I humbly invite you, dear reader, to come out to one of my events in the coming months—and let me know about yours!

Stephanie Anderson is a writer living in Boca Raton, Florida. She holds an MFA from Florida Atlantic University, where she currently serves as an Instructor of English. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Rumpus, Flyway, The Pinch, Hotel Amerika, Midwestern Gothic, Grist Journal, The Chronicle Review, Sweet, and others. Stephanie is proud to have grown up in South Dakota, and her work often centers on the prairie and rural life. Her debut book titled One Size Fits None, a work of literary journalism focused on regenerative agriculture, appeared with University of Nebraska Press in January 2019.

Testing the Waters

I walked into Danez Smith’s workshop with the extent of my poetry knowledge limited to Shel Silverstein and an introductory course during my undergraduate studies at Penn State. I was lucky to be prepped with a few mini-lessons on form from my fellow Graduate Teaching Assistant and friend, Renae. She is exceedingly patient and kind, explaining to me the intricacies that are line breaks and tension. As a fiction candidate, I like to stick to what I know when it comes to writing and, more specifically, what I know I can write well. In a poetry workshop, I was a Type A fish out of my neat and tidy Type A water.

I took my seat at the table where we would gather for the week, and Danez asked us to introduce ourselves with additional tidbits of information – where we were at in the MFA program, what our primary genre was, where we were from, and what our favorite fast food restaurant was. Right off the bat, I was flummoxed, misstating that I was in my third year at FAU (I am a mere first-year) and letting the rosiness on my cheeks signal my embarrassment. I turned to Renae and reiterated, “I am out of my element.”

Soon enough, however, I felt myself embraced by Danez, who was successful in explaining poetic form by comparing entities like The Powerpuff Girls to a crown of sonnets. According to Danez, much like the crime-fighting trio, this form consists of unified “sister poems,” also known as poems that are “same same, but different.” Danez was able to break down concepts to more manageable ideas, and I’m always a sucker for a solid pop culture reference. We laughed as we compared one type of poetic sequence to the 2016 collaboration between Rihanna, Paul McCartney, and Kanye West for “FourFiveSeconds.” Danez explained it as something that makes no sense at all, yet somehow, it works. Cartoons and celebrities? This was very much my speed.

As the week went on, I found myself inspired by what Danez had been talking about. Not just poetry as a form, but poetry as a way to express thought and feeling through writing. During their reading, Danez stressed that being honest in your work is something they focus on, and I felt a resonance with that statement. Maybe poetry was the outlet that would allow me to talk about my experiences and the ideas I so often tried to integrate into my fiction. I ended up walking away from this workshop with a new sense of what poetry was, and I felt inclined to thank Danez for their time working with us during the week. I shook their hand, thanked them while smiling, and felt the same nervousness I had on the first day. This time, however, it was nervousness in the form of excitement and the potential to get started. Having tested new, sometimes uncomfortable waters, I now feel confident in expanding my writing wheelhouse.

Abigail Reinhard is a first-year MFA candidate at Florida Atlantic University with a concentration in fiction. A native Jersey Girl, she received her bachelor's degree in English from Penn State University in 2016.

Dangerous Seed

Having read Don’t Call Us Dead in both my African American Literature course and my Poetry workshop, I was eager, and nervous, to meet the author behind the words. This was my first workshop hosted by an outside author at Florida Atlantic University, so I didn’t know what to expect. After meeting Danez Smith, the nerves quickly faded. They were so welcoming and motivating throughout the entire workshop, I almost felt as if I had met them before. Perhaps because their poems evoke that same, welcoming aura, and perhaps because they always seem to have a smile on their face.

            Throughout the workshop, Smith emphasized the importance of writing for specific audiences, which is something I had previously not put enough consideration into. We all belong to different communities, and can therefore write to those groups in a specific language of sorts. This doesn’t have to mean a literal different language, but by including specific insiders, one invites people in while concurrently holding others at a distance. Smith had us put this idea to practice by taking one of our poems and reworking it, keeping three separate audiences in mind as we revised. When we all shared our new pieces, the poems seemed to change form completely, solely dependent upon who the speaker was addressing. Moving forward with my own work, I will be sure to decide who exactly I am speaking to before I begin writing.   

While attending Smith’s reading at the end of the week, I found myself smiling along with them as they read. I was sitting next to fellow MFA student Abigail Reinhard, who I met through FAU’s MFA program and now consider a best friend, when Smith read their poem “acknowledgements,” specifically dedicated to friendships. Abigail and I found ourselves nudging each other whenever something applied to us (specifically the line “I text you & you say, I was bout to text you bitch”). While reading all of their poems, they had the room laughing and aching at the same time. To evoke those senses simultaneously through writing is to evoke something true. Listening to Smith read was admirable, and reminded me of the many reasons why I love to write.

At the end of the reading, I waited in line for Smith to sign my copy of Don’t Call Us Dead. When it was my turn, I made sure to ask them if they meant for the italicized lines in “summer, somewhere” to read both down and across the page, to which they said yes, they did intend this, but not initially, like a happy accident. As a writer, I lingered on these words—that feeling of doing something exciting subconsciously is a moment I, and I assume others, strive for.

I walked to the parking lot after the reading feeling full (and not as a result of the provided food, which was lovely). I opened my copy to see what was written. They crossed out their own name and wrote, “Renae! Be a dangerous seed!” I think these words capture what Danez Smith was teaching us during the week-long workshop—take risks with your writing, and know that your words mean something to someone and, most important, that they hold power.

Renae Tucker is a first-year MFA creative nonfiction candidate at Florida Atlantic University.