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Writers' Book Tours
- are they thrilling or drudgery?
.David
Baldacci "on the road"tours:
he seems
to like them!
.Thomas
McGuane & Margaret Atwood: he prefers fishing
trips; she invents an escape machine for writers!
In a June,
1993 issue of Esquire magazine, fishing
writer and budding novelist Thomas McGuane managed to
combine the toil and trouble of a writer’s book tour
with a quail hunting and trout fishing trip in Texas.
The Sturm und Drang came together superbly well.
“Even on my short holiday home,”
McGuane’s story began, “my wife thought I ought to be
fishing; she said my mind was 'in ribbons'. I was going
to be back on the road so soon I really just wanted to
curl up somewhere. In the year of a book tour, an author
saunters from airport to airport supremely confident of
the value of his talks and readings. It’s a crying shame
that this feeling gives way to an all–consuming fear
that his first auditors will turn up in the later cities
and discover his bon mots reduced to cheese-skulled
yammering and the geekish didacticism of the mentally
bankrupt.”
Those words forever endeared me to
McGuane's work as he continued his writing
career. I supposed he still dragged his weary length
through book promotional tours, finding the circus
ever-gruelling. What happened to that reluctant book
sales-promotion-tourist, I wondered.
Through the intervening decade,
that magazine-clipping lay in my all-purposes
bag. But it came to mind
recently when I saw David Baldacci’s 2007 tour schedule
spread out in his web site. In Lee County, Florida,
via by the magic of internet and email, plus a deal of
on-the-ground assistance, I tried to catch up with the
vastly popular novelist to see how he fared “on the
road”. He and his organisation were launching and
promoting his newest book, Simple Genius.
It turned out to be a difficult assignment. In fact, I
have to report my own failure ...
Tried to join a moving
train?
I had submitted a
request to a book readers’ group in Lee County, Florida:
”Is
there some way, that you could contact a writer or two
for me from your region (members of the group), who
would enjoy writing and illustrating their own
individual reports (250-500 words) on the happenings of
next weekend, there in Florida?”
As a former marketer,
writer and publicist coming out of the cold of a
six-year sabbatical, I had to confront the spectre of
emoluments entering the equation, and so, hastened to add:
”If they (my enthusiastic volunteer reporters) are
inexperienced, that is quite OK - we would be pleased to
assist them with shaping and editing for publication as
a practical exercise for us both! If they are
professionals, we can negotiate a small fee or donation
to a nominated charity.”
Despite the best efforts
of those hard-pressed administrators at Lee County,
technical problems later afflicted their nominee and the
project then faltered. We failed to secure a direct report to
put before you about: what goes on when a promotional
publishers’ cavalcade hits town; what were the benefits
for both parties involved; what were the highlights and
lowlights of the weekend there in the sunny south of the
USA when a formidable scrum of writers strutted their
stuff? We will have to wonder, but other writers have
since filled us in on some of the issues. See below
As
an old-fashioned, old European courtesy, I also emailed
David Baldacci via his website, to advise him that I
would be briefing someone from among his host audience
on that sun-soaked weekend in Florida , and would ask
them to report their experience of an author on his book
marketing “wagon tour”.
Deep
into the production phase of another book, which I
assume was Stone Cold - due out this autumn (fall),
David was unable to respond. But through the kindness of
Deborah Hocutt, Executive Director, David
Baldacci Enterprises, I did manage to secure a comment
from the writer to a question about the impact of tours
on the writing process itself.
Baldacci said: "I'm fortunate in that
I can write anywhere under any conditions. I write on
the plane, train, in hotel rooms. Wherever I am or
whatever I'm doing I can think about the next idea, plot
point or character arc.
I'm
not a writer who counts words as an artificial goal. I
truly enjoy the process of writing and creating and not
even a book tour can get in the way of that."
That
was pretty good I thought – not what I had sought
really, but here was a twinkle of an insight into
both the famous man and his modus operandi,
rolling out successful book after successful book in
what seems an unstoppable process.
An
Unlikely Couple
The Montana rancher, writer, fisherman Thomas McGuane and Margaret
Atwood, Canadian top-rating writer, have something in
common: an abhorrence of the book publishers'
promotional circuit ...
First, Thomas McGuane:
Where to start in the quest to unearth an author one
doesn't know personally (but feels he does) and this,
after a pause of thirteen years? As is often the case
for journalists living away from their old stamping
grounds, the internet was as good a place to start as
say, the local library might have been. But it's all in
German.
Entering simply 'Thomas
McGuane' in as search engine, I found one such in a
split second: Thomas McGuane, same region of USA, but this
one was the son of the 'original'. His response to an
impertinent inquiry about his 'Dad' was disarming and as
instructive as one could ever have ever hoped.. Here it
is in full (with his kind permission):
"Thanks for getting in
touch. I have my web site idling as I have just moved
into a new workshop and have made many changes in the
doing.
When I was a child the
(book promo) trips were shorter and in '93 I was well
out of college.
Luckily for Dad many of his fishing
trips lasted as long as a book tour! He has worked hard
to make his life like that.
I can tell you that he'll
call from the road with another airline cold, carpal
tunnel syndrome and almost no voice at all to tell me
that this is definitely the last one! I have forwarded
your e-mail to him. Take care. Sincerely, Thomas."
Oh yes!
" ...
have made many changes in the doing."
and
"he'd
call from the road with another airline cold ..."
That ease, simplicity
and grace accompanied by directness in the writing, suggested
another would-be writer. But this man was now a knife
craftsman of widely recognised skills. living far away
from towns, cities and publishing houses. There had been
a time, as the younger Thomas emerged from the same
university as his Dad ( Michigan), when the prospect of
a literary life beckoned strongly. But he chose
a road less travelled.
Charm and quietness
seems catching in this family. How simple it had been for
me to learn about the author and the son. How refreshing
to have received a golden hint about the true reasons
younger-Thomas had sought peace, inspiration and craft
in Japan - in the ancient trade of a blade smith.
The elder
Thomas speaks with respect about his son's choice; a
respect that seems to border on more than admiration and
parental pride. For the author, immersion in the life of
a cattle rancher, partially funded by his literary
output, had presented him with his own still place. One
wondered whether David Baldacci would fare: a lawyer so
successfully turned writer and now poised at the leading
edge of that sales scramble: the modern commercial book
world? Would he and others along with him for the ride.
weather the strain as well as the "Westerner" managed
it?
So
this was what had transpired for McGuane over the
thirteen or so years?
Although born
and raised in Michigan, Thomas McGuane (Sr.) has lived
in the Blue Sky Country more or less continuously since
he entered teen-age - and now, he's ensconced with his
family, dogs and horses in Sweetwater County, Montana. When he gives a public reading at his local book store,
McGuane drives 90 miles to Bozeman. There he is not
exactly at ease with all the other 'locals' who write
what he terms "pastel versions of the west",
places where
hardened frontier denizens stand proud, their
frilly-skirted ladies alongside. Not his cup of tea.
McGuane's
books replace the cowboys and Indians with ordinary
folks afflicted with "generalised anxiety
disorder".
At 67 Thomas McGuane
has written a dozen novels, a raft of screen plays and a
batch of non-fiction collections (related mostly to his
passions: fishing and equine pursuits. His fictional
subjects reflect a witty, keenly honed blade that points
at the
domestic preoccupations of American existence.
His
children live nearby and that feels good.
"Nothing
beats catching a trout on a dry fly," McGuane wrote for
Esquire in 1993, "unless it's hooking a loathsome critic
with a line."
"As I
packed to go back on my tour, I had my usual
thought that I would never see my home again - never see
my family; never see my dogs, Sadie, K.D, Ella, and Raba; never see the cats, DJ, and Mother ... never see
those great shoes my wife is trying to get me to throw
out. Instead, I would simply die at a lonely lectern,
asking for a glass of water while voices from the
blackness inquire if a middle-aged, middle-western,
middle-class white male really thinks he ... and so on,
You get the drift.
I was
ready to head back for that highway where it is always
autumn."
Margaret Atwood and Her LongPen (tm) Concept
A strange sort of outfit but the idea seems to be
catching on
If you wonder where
30 year writing veteran Margaret Atwood is around now
(August September 2007),
you might try a hugely nature-conservation-oriented
tourism concern called Adventure Canada. She's at sea
somewhere in Canada's (still wet) wilds.
She's
lady 'of many parts, as it were.
Here for instance is the first FAQ
item on a web site for LongPen. It's a
sort of touch-me-not
interviewing and book-signing setup that the author has developed
(or
had developed for her), from the start of this century.
Its concept harks back
to a 19th century idea of sending written messages by
wire. As you can see in our illustration of the most
recent public appearance of the gizmo, it works in
conjunction with screen projection and is a live contact
between author and reader, author and media, author and
author. Not only eliminates the hassle of following
gruesome travelling schedules, but its use has been
linked to substantial savings in (unburned) jet fuel
carbons. It won't kill off book tours entirely or
destroy publishing extravaganzas like those in London,
Edinburgh, New York and Frankfurt book fairs, but it is
a unique and sensible step.
Atwood says: "At the end of November, 2004, Unotchit Inc., my newly
created company, did a small, by-invitation-only
demonstration of the earliest working model of our
remote book-signing device. No journalists were invited.
No press release was circulated. The point of the
demonstration was simply to see what publishers would
think of the idea -- whether they would agree with us
that this device would expand possibilities for writers
and readers, as well as for publishers.
As is
the way of the world, news leaked out despite us. The
industry magazine Quill & Quire did a small article, as
a result of which The Globe and Mail did one, and then
-- it really is a global village! -- the news travelled
around the world, with the BBC, the Guardian, the Los
Angeles Times and Business Week all doing pieces, and
many more in addition. We've had inquiries from as far
away as Taiwan. Now there's a buzz on various Internet
blogs -- is the whole thing a joke? -- and "surveys"
have appeared, and editorial comments have been made. We
feel we're in the Land O' Magic Rumour.
The
primary questions have been answered in the main
information sheet posted on our Web page.
But here, in true
Agony Aunt style, are the answers to some of your more
anguished intimate questions." (end of
quote)
And so on. There we have an unguarded, hassle-free
glimpse of this writer and this writer's general
approach to life!
Here is
the gizmo itself:
Novelist
Normal Mailer (84) (left, on screen) in interviewed at the Edinburgh
International Book Fair in August from his home in
Provincetown USA using LongPen (tm).
(Photo: Courtesy EIBF)
Perhaps Margaret has the answer to book
signings at least , for now. The lean, hungry
journalists and we enthusiastic bookworms are
another problem altogether.
And the industry itself?
- Neil McPherson
Please note that this site is hosted
in Australia and operates from Mainz, Germany. It uses
English UK spellings. The usages and idioms are
those of this author or authors.
Nexus newsletter It is
published at midnight Eastern US coastal time each
second Tuesday.
Submissions are welcome but at the
moment are unpaid. By-lines are allowed.
See Company details and Space Cowboys
Concept.
Resources connected with this article:
-
David Baldacci web
site DavidBaldacci.com
-
Emma Brockes'
helpful article on Thomas McGuane, called
The lay of the land gave what we thought was a
balanced view of the writer, his relationship to
the land and his style and attitudes. to the book
industry and media. Contains comments about McGuane's
son Thomas and blade craft. You can read it online at
the Guardian Unlimited site listed above.
-
Comments from Thomas
McGuane (Jr.) are held in he possession of this
writer.
-
The article by Thomas
McGuane: Low Life, Deep Water appeared
the June 1993 edition of Esquire magazine.
-
Margaret Atwood's
slightly quaint , but nice, web site is:
http://www.owtoad.com
and the Atwood Society, a more 'academic' site is:
www.cariboo.be.ca/atwood/
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The photographs of the
writers were used from their own sites, except McGuane
who does not have one, we think. We thank
IdentityTheory.com for that.
-
David Baldacci
competition for business writers. Free. Book prize
for winner.
-
Note: This
was an archived edition of the newsletter. If you would
like to subscribe and use this sort of material to
stimulate your business writing, you are
most welcome. How to do that? Go to
Contact Us and enter Nexus
in the subject line. That will do it. Or you can add a
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