January 24, 2002
BIG-ASSED FAMOUS

    SO, I am organizing a book tour this year, and let me tell you, it sucks. First off, there is the Wall of Silence marked by crickets that hits me in the face whenever I mention it, because a) most people don't even know I have published books and b) even the ones who do know are so sick of hearing about it they no longer have the will to pretend to care. Secondly, and only slightly worse, is the fact that I have no fucking idea what I'm doing and am probably dooming myself to a lot of loooong days and evening sitting alone and ignored in weird bookstores. Having done that once or twice last year, lord knows I'm in no rush to do it again this year.
    But, I have no choice, really. The only way to keep the books on shelves and selling - even the once-in-a-blue-moon sales pace I've enjoyed so far - is to wander about shouting about it. No, really. I realized that I was pretty lazy last year in doing only four real events to promote "Lifers" - so I decided I had to bite the bullet and get my ass out there, humiliation be damned. The result is "The Big Assed Famous Book Tour ‘02" which I am currently organizing; I hope to have the web page up and a formal announcement soon. I'm waiting until I have at least 4 or 5 places booked, so as to at least have the appearance of legitimacy. No one will take a book tour seriously if you don't have any venues listed, after all.

    Now, in the comfier world of best-sellers, the publisher takes care of most of this shit, I imagine. I have to imagine, because in the murky world of small-press and self-publishing, it's all up to me. I contacted my publisher and they promised to help me by, at a minimum, steering me towards book stores and providing local media listings etc - but so far, bupkus from the fine folks at Creative Arts Book Company. Sensing I might be celebrating the Diamond Anniversary of "Lifers" before they got back to me, I just waded in and started organizing. I'm sure the tour will be a mix of moderate successes and soul-chilling failures, and I'm not excited about it, to be honest, but what the fuck. Gotta get up and dance if I want anyone to toss coins into my cup, right?

    First off, I defined for myself the dimensions of my tour. I decided I didn't want to fly anywhere, because I hate to fly and don't want to make this any worse for myself than it already is, and because I wanted to keep the scope small. I've never done this before, and I know lining up even 5-10 places to read will be a huge amount of work. So I decided to keep it on the East Coast, confined to cities I can drive to. This is actually a pretty wide area, and I quickly picked my cities - New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, and Washington D.C. Then I added Chicago, because the folks at Quimbys were real nice and excited about having me out there - so nice to be wanted! Am I driving to Chi-town too? You bet your ass I am. Sixteen hours in the car with the lovely [CENSORED BY ORDER OF WIFE] beats flying any day.
    Then, of course, the nontrivial step of finding bookstores to do something in. I figured I had one book, "Lifers", which was distributed by a large book distributor, and one which was self-published and would need to sell via consignment, basically. So the big chain stores were a possibility to do "Lifers" events, but not for "Freaks" - so I figured I'd keep it to small, Indy bookstores if I could. But I'm not ruling out the big chains if I can't find a smaller store willing to work with me.
    Also, since Tower Magazines is printing the "Freaks" book, I figure I can set up some things for that book in some Tower stores here or there. If I'm going to drive five hours to get somewhere, I figure I might as well make a day of it and do something at a Tower and whatever other store I dig up. Why not? So what if I fear readings like fire.
    Easier said than done. getting basic information for a bookstore isn't so hard  - I asked around for suggestions and just did Internet research after that. But of course, most of the places I contact don't get back to me, the dirty bastards. So you have to come up with alternate stores. When you finally do get a positive response, you have to work out a date, send the store all your materials - more shit I gotta do. Then begins the dreaded Hunt for Publicity.

    The Hunt for Publicity - the crappiest, crappiest part of the whole process. Trying to get publicity is like the scene from the movie Ghostbusters where Rick Moranis is fleeing a demon in Central Park, and ends up outside the glass wall of Tavern on the Green. he jumps around screaming for help, but the rich folks inside don't pay any attention. That's publicity drumming: you jump around drowning not waving like some kid missing a Ritalin dose, and generally everyone ignores your  boring Press Release and all your semi-ironic attempts to interest them in writing something about your ‘event'. I can't blame them. I wouldn't show up at my events either, except I have to.
    Oh well. I'll live. I could be working a minimum wage job with no benefits, eating dog food and terrified of going to the ER for anything - things could be worse. In the meantime, I will be announcing my Big-Assed Famous Tour any day now, so watch the skies, and if you think I should come to your town to dance for your pennies, please drop me a line. Until we meet on the road, mon cheries, I remain