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| Volume 51, Number 2, Spring 2002 |
AUTHOR REGROUPS AFTER BOOK TOUR LAUNCH ON SEPT. 11by Mitch Waldrop
Is there any way to recover? I sure hope so. Like everyone else who came out with a book last
fall (except, perhaps, for the authors of Germs), I found myself caught
in atrociously bad timing. In late August 2001-nine, count them, nine
years after I started work on the project-Viking shipped the first
copies of The Dream Machine, my book on the history of computing.
In retrospect I'd already missed the perfect time for release, since
computers and networking had lost a lot of the cachet they'd had before
the dot-com collapse. Still, the reviews were good, Viking was excited,
and had planned a six-city book tour with stops in major tech centers
like Silicon
Needless to say, the book tour did not come off as planned. Holly Watson, my publicist at Viking, did what she could to salvage the situation. After extensive discussion, we agreed that I should do the New York-Boston leg of the tour as planned in late September, two weeks after the attack. And while the atmosphere in those cities was still a bit surreal, the turnout for my bookstore appearances was actually quite decent--maybe because people were looking for something to take their minds off September 11. Despite Holly's best efforts, however, my key Boston radio appearance was canceled, since the station was still doing 24/7 terrorism coverage. And worse, thanks to the post-9/11 chaos at the airports, my entire West Coast swing just evaporated. (I'd traveled to New York and Boston by train.) Holly did spend several weeks trying to get my West Coast events rescheduled for year end. And thevarious bookstores and other hosts who had invited me did their best to accommodate the situation. But this was difficult for the bookstores who schedule authors way far in advance. So in the end, I had to make a choice: either settle for a mediocre, patched together book tour now, while Dream Machine was still relatively new-or wait a year and plan a good tour for the paperback release, which was already scheduled for August 2002. I decided to wait. Thus the hoped-for recovery: maybe the paperback tour this fall will have its desired effect, and people will actually hear about my book. Meanwhile, if there's any general lesson I'd draw from this experience, it's simply this: Be nice to your publicist. I would have thought that this was axiomatic, not to mention being the most pleasant way to deal with people. But apparently not, since I'm told that many authors tend to be impatient, surly, and condescending toward publicists, editors, and everyone else. In any case, talk with your publicist early and often. I actually made a special trip to New York several months before the book came out, just to meet the people in the publicity department face to face. Participate actively in the publicity planning process. Be patient. Establish a good working relationship and work hard to maintain it. After all, while we can hope that there will never be another September 11, there will most certainly be other OJs, Dianas, and Monicas. And when, not if, the glitches come, you're going to want your publicist to work as hard for you as Holly Watson did for me, and to go that extra mile. Now, I just have to keep my fingers crossed for the paperback release this fall. _ # Mitch Waldrop is a freelance writer based in Washington, D.C. |
It's
often said that the success of any nonfiction book, science-related
or otherwise, depends on three critical factors: timing, timing, and
timing. Unfortunately, as many authors know, timing isn't always controllable.
Say you're just starting out on your book tour-the first and only
big publicity push your publisher is likely to give you-and the O.
J. Simpson verdict is announced. Or the Princess of Wales is killed
in a car crash. Or the President gets caught with his pants down in
the presence of an intern. Suddenly, the media is off on one of its
fabled feeding frenzies, most of your radio and TV appearances are
canceled, and you're left to go through the motions of your forlorn
little book tour with nobody paying attention. Kiss your fantasies
of best-sellerdom goodbye.