Lessons from a Debut Author’s first BEA & Book Tour

Last week, I flew to New York for 5 days of author events.  I was there for BEA and a book tour that covered libraries and bookstores.  (For a rundown on events, see my earlier blog.)

Now, for a few lucky authors, a trip like this might be planned by your publisher.  But for most of us, publishers welcome your marketing efforts, but they can’t afford to foot the bill.  So it may be left up to you to arrange, organize and pay for a signing trip. That’s what happened with me.  As you might expect, I learned a few things along the way.  So here are some of the lessons I learned, in hopes that they might help you if you find yourself in the same situation.

NYC Book Tour, BEA, and Tater Tots with the Class of 2k11

The timing couldn’t have been better…or worse.  I left Phoenix, Arizona and headed to New York on May 22nd.  My debut teen book, OyMG, officially released May 10th, just two weeks earlier.  Life was insane.  My book hadn’t been out long enough to have a readership, and although my trip coincided with BEA week, my publisher, Walker Books, wouldn’t be featuring OyMG because they generally use BEA to promote fall releases.  But I had one thing going for me.

The Class of 2k11.