How I Formed a Friendship on a Book Tour
As a nervous debut author, I asked my editor for advice on my first book tour. Her reply: “Remember, none of it is real.”
I didn’t really understand what she meant, but trusted she would be right, as she so often is. I traveled from Los Angeles to New York to Indianapolis to Cleveland to San Francisco. I spoke to crowds as large as 800 and as small as three.
I visited libraries, conferences, bookstores and festivals. Read excerpts and signed books and shook hands and sipped wine and made jokes and tried awfully hard to be charming every where I went. It was real of course, but not at all real either, in the sense that it had nothing to do with actually writing.
It was new and exciting and educational. I met other authors, entering into a new community. I began to understand how important it is for an author to connect with fans. And then I went back home to my real life of writing and teaching.
Two weeks ago, The Burial Society tour began with an event at the Barnes & Noble at The Grove in Los Angeles. Over 100 people turned out to celebrate its release. I’d launched Just Fall there too and it was a nice homecoming.
Then I was off to New York, where friends both old and new came out to support the book at the Mysterious Bookshop in Tribeca. Many of my beloved family members gathered at a second event at the Queensborough Library in support of the release and my esteemed Dad’s 89th birthday, which happened to coincide.
From New York I was off to Indiana, where my adventures really began. Back in 2016, the Christamore Guild invited me to an author’s lunch, beginning a wonderful relationship for me with the city of Indianapolis. Last summer I was invited to the Midwest Writers Workshop in Muncie, another exceptional experience.
This past weekend, I gave three short presentations at a Midwest Writers Workshop’s mini conference. I talked to a combined group of the local chapters of Romance Writers of America and Sisters in Crime. I spoke as part of the beautiful Carmel Clay Library’s visiting author series, where a terrific audience turned out despite freezing rain.
Again, I read excerpts and signed books and shook hands and sipped wine and made jokes and tried awfully hard to be charming every where I went.
But the real fun was careening around Indianapolis with Cathy Shouse, my original super fan, and her lovely 18-year-old daughter Katelyn.
Cathy and I met around the release of my first novel and she has been a steadfast supporter ever since, organizing the entire Indiana portion of my book tour.
Together we dug into White Castle hamburgers and gooey cinnamon buns. We visited local bookstores, where I signed books and Cathy charmed. We drove on the freeway at night with no dashboard lights until Cathy decided that “guessing her speed” maybe wasn’t the way to play it and pulled over.
We laughed and shared opinions and found our points of alliance, the Indiana farm girls and the New York City slicker. Book tours may mainly be a brief time away from real life. On this tour, however, a real friendship was born.
