Read half a dozen books about PR, marketing and book publicity. As expected there’s as many number of strategies on this as there are about writing books. Apparently it’s quite rare for publishers to pay for, or organize, tours. The economics do not work out – the $2000 or $3000 it might cost to bring an author somewhere need to be balanced out by $2k in increased sales because of the tour. Few authors are well known enough to draw many people to book signings or lectures… so authors tend to be on their own.

My plan: I’m a good public speaker and I like speaking, so lets try to get some speaking gigs together. I negotiated a date with the publisher (should they be able to help out), and send out mail to people I knew at various companies. Asked on my mailing list. Eventually built a list of 5 or 6 gigs – enough to warrant a 3 day trip down the coast to San Fransisco. My expenses are out of pocket, but so what. Buy the ticket, take the ride. Write a book, go talk to people about it. That’s what I’m telling myself. $600 isn’t much to pay to learn about how to do these things – I’ll have a clue for the next book about what the right approach to these things are.