CHAPTER II, Blog # 12

Time
Is a book tour a good investment of your time? Depends. If your are an attorney charging $450 an hour, maybe not. When did John Grisham quit his day job? Touring establishes your credibility especially among the booksellers and your publisher (Read future publisher if your current publisher did not pay for your book tour!).
If your are planning an extensive regional or national tour you can try and plan your book tour around vacation time. This is easier for writers without large families. Though I know one author who took his family with him on book tour and survived!

Your Budget?
What type of campaign you plan will depend on how much time you have or want to dedicate to your campaign and most important your budget.

Travel: Calculate hotel, gas and food. If you go on an extended book tour. I targeted
states and cities where I had friends and family who would gladly put me up for a night.
They also came to the events assuring a lively crowd.

Telephone. Depending on your campaign if it is out of area then this can be the largest
expense. Think of a national calling plan with a fixed fee and unlimited anytime minutes.
Plans change so swiftly check with all the instate and out-of-state carriers.

Postage. As you found out while sending out manuscripts this is another major expense.

Stationary. Necessary. You can print, like I do, stationary from your computer.

Printing. Hopefully one time costs. Example, 6,000 postcards for $450.00

Your Time: If you haven’t quite your day job, which I highly recommend you do not do,
remember your time is valuable.

It is said calculate your promotion budget as 10% of your advance. If your advance was as small as mine then you could only afford a half dozen telephone calls. Spend only what you can afford. Though take into consideration this might be your only shot at proving you are a saleable author. I spent my advance plus.

Don’t hold your breath waiting for your royalty check.

Remember generally you will not get any royalties until months after the end of the year to allow for return calculations. Except for your advance, your royalty checks will not help finance you publicity campaign.