Why does a Book Tour work?
Done well, a book our allows people to know, like and trust you—essential characteristics of 
any selling and buying relationship. As I prepare a book tour to promote my soon-to-be-released Here to Stay/Lives in 17th Century Canada, I want to share some elements with you that I think make a book tour work.
But first, a moment of levity!
One fall evening in 1992, I was launching a book tour. My first stop was at my town’s library. As I approached the library, a copy of my recently published book, Turning Memories Into Memoirs / A Handbook for Writing Lifestories, lying on the passenger seat, its width thickened by slips of paper to indicate places from which I wanted to read at my program, I was evident there were few parking spaces along the town’s Main Street which was normally empty in the evening.
Well! How exciting could this be! Turning Memories Into Memoirs was my fifth book and my first how-to. I had great hopes for it. I had been leading memoir-writing workshops for the previous four years, and Turning Memories Into Memoirs was the summation of my teaching and coaching. It was truly a comprehensive guide that covered memoir writing from A to Z, and any writer making use of its many suggestions and guidelines was likely to succeed at undertaking and finishing an interesting and meaningful memoir.
The publicity—press releases, calendar of events, posters—was what was available at the time (1992), and I had, as they say, “covered my bases.” And now, it was the moment of my big launch at the local library—from which I had launched my four previous books—and that evening, I was apparently doing my outreach well as it seemed I had a full house! How exciting to have every available street parking space taken.
Not only do I always enjoy going up and down the rows of seats at the beginning of a program to ask people where they are at in their memoir-writing project but I feel it is important for establishing rapport with the attendees. Now, keeping my excitement in check, I knew I had to focus on finding a parking spot so as to be at the library not only on time but to “work the crowd.”
So, it was with a solid sense of anticipation that I found a parking spot on a side street and rushed to the library, joining the line of people streaming into the building.
Dashing inside, I entered the room where I was to read.
It was sparsely filled! Perhaps thirty people!
Huh?
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