By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 4/14/2016
There’s a new Chester Brown book coming out, and it’s a doozy. It’s called Mary Wept Over the Feet of Jesus, and it examines stories of bibles heroines via their relationship with prostitution. This profession was at the heart of Chester Brown’s previous book, Paying For It, which is all about how he switched to […]
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 1/4/2016
Daniel Clowes new graphic novel Patience drops in late winter and it’s sure to be the comic book event of the first half of 2016. Promised as a SF tale about time travel and love, it’s a powerful return for Clowes. And you’ll be able to get your copy signed, and doubtless hear a talk […]
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By: Diana Hurwitz,
on 9/6/2013
By: Alice,
on 12/28/2012
Thirty years after the first edition was published, Synagogues of New York’s Lower East Side: A Retrospective and Contemporary View, Second Edition (Fordham University Press) was released earlier this year. The author Gerard Wolfe shows how the Jewish community took root on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in the late 19th and early 20th century by focusing on these beautiful buildings and houses of worship. It was Dr. Wolfe’s walking tours on the Lower East Side early 1970’s that led to the renovation of many synagogues in the neighborhood, including the Eldridge Street Synagogue. The Tenement Museum on Orchard Street hosted Dr. Wolfe for a signing and launch event for the book on 19 November 2012. These photos were taken from that event, and a visit to the Museum of Jewish Heritage earlier that day.
Gerard R. Wolfe, Ph.D., is an architectural historian and former professor and administrator at New York University and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He was the first to offer historical/architectural walking tours of the Lower East Side, beginning in the early 1970s. He is the author of The Synagogues of New York’s Lower East Side: A Retrospective and Contemporary View, Second Edition.
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By: April Henry,
on 5/1/2012
Nine authors, publicists, and event givers talk about book tours in an article in the Awl. I love this quote from one of them: ”I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I always wanted to go on a book tour. When you’re submitting flash fiction to Kitty Fart Face Review and you see another writer going on a twelve-city tour with a novel, you too want that. You kind of crave it, even if you deny yourself in expressing it.
Read more about book tours from The Awl here.
And here's a look at my very first book tour, twelve years ago.
By: April Henry,
on 3/9/2012
For the second year, Penguin is having a Breathless Reads tour. This years features five YA authors: Maria Lamba (author of Drawn), Beth Revis (author of the Across the Universe series), Jessica Spotswood (debut author of Born Wicked), Marie Lu (debut author of Legend) and Andrea Cremer (author of the Nightshade series).
In April, Atria will launch The Great Mystery Bus Tour, featuring three Atria authors that starts in New York City and hits 11 cities in eight days. The tour will feature Irish novelist John Connolly, Scandinavian novelist Liza Marklund, and America’s own M.J. Rose.
Harper Collins has a clever twist to the theme. As Publishers Weekly reports, “Nine middle-grade authors will vie to win "Best in Class" this fall, when HarperCollins sends them out on its Class Acts tour to schools and bookstores across the country. The authors will be paired (or in one case, tripled) up, and each team will visit three cities, where they are expected to make one school and one bookstore appearance. At the emceed school events, students will be divided into two groups in advance of the authors’ visits, with each group backing one author.”
Read more about Harper Collins Class Acts tour.
And a person at Penguin explains: “It’s not just sending them on tour. It’s developing a Facebook presence for the collection of books separate from their individual [pages]. It’s having a sampler on all major retailers, you can download a free sampler on the Nook, on the Kindle and on all the devices. It’s robust Twitter and Facebook advertising, a GoodReads campaign. We really wanted to take the idea of a group tour and then amplify it across as many channels as possible to really reach a wide audience.” Read more about how Penguin set up the Breathless Read tour.
I had a friend who went on a bus tour to Wal-Marts a few years back. It was organized by the company that supplied books to the chain. It sounded like great fun.
By: Marge Loch-Wouters,
on 3/6/2012
Scout troops always present an interesting challenge when they contact us for a visit. The leaders are trying to have the kids complete a communications or reading or library or "?" badge - they often seem to be unclear on what they want/need. The tours need to be scheduled in the late afternoon or evening when we tend to be either busiest or most lightly staffed. The kids are usually a little wild when they get together and the leaders a bit at a loss on how to reign in the natural exuberence of boys or girls not in school.
By: Marge Loch-Wouters,
on 2/1/2012
By: April Henry,
on 7/11/2011
The Economist reports that Aylet Waldman “offered a deal to her 5,000-odd followers on Twitter and a similar number on Facebook. If someone would commit to mustering 50 or more readers to a talk and signing session at a bookshop, she promised to come, irrespective of whether it was in a metropolis or a backwater.”
It’s interesting that The Economist says she chose to forgo a traditional tour. Publishers are hardly touring authors at all these days, so was it really her choice? And I’d be curious if her publisher paid for travel or she did. One thing that might make a difference: her husband is author Michael Chabon, which probably means they have the means to self-finance.
Read more here.
By: April Henry,
on 6/17/2011
Twelve years ago, when I published my first book, it seemed easier to get book tours. I got toured with my second bookan experience which you can read here. There were more newspapers, for one thing, which might write a review of your book a few days before you came. Radio and TV shows had more local programming that might feature you.
One thing I've never considered is the bookseller's perspective. "Most publishers use event grids as a way for all stores to request touring authors. The grid is a massive Excel spreadsheet that needs to be filled out in with lots of in-depth detail about what you can do for the event: how many books will you order, what size crowd do you expect, what is your marketing plan for the event, etc." And this article in Publisher's Weekly says that when it comes to a national tour, a 20-person event is a disappointment.
By: April Henry,
on 1/21/2011
Over on the Huffington Post, one author talked about what is often the reality of book tours. It doesn't start with reality, though, it starts with a fantasy: “Of course, total strangers would want to leave the comfort of their homes on a weeknight just to see me, an author they'd never heard of, who'd written a book they didn't know existed!”
Yeah, right.
She also talked about what has worked well for her: “My publisher, smartly, builds my bookstore appearances around ticketed events; literary foundations, museums, with lecture series who invite me to appear. These events come with some ready-made publicity, as well as ready-made audiences.
Read more here.
And here's my diary of my first book tour, eleven years ago.
By: April Henry,
on 9/28/2010
If you're an author and are ever lucky enough to go on tour, then you might do something called the "drive-by signing." That's when you stop by a few (or all) of the other bookstores in the area where you have a scheduled signing, come in and meet the staff, sign the stock, and make a quick (and hopefully positive) impression before you are on to the next store.
And if you're again lucky, you'll have an escort who will have called ahead to check stock to make sure you don't end up in the awkward situation of standing at the info counter to learn that they have none of your books in stock.
(And if you're smart and have the energy, you'll have found out whether the escort planned to give the stores a heads-up about your visit. And if not, you have gotten the list of all the stores and tediously called them, one by one, a week beforehand, to see if they might bump up their stock so you'll have something to sign. Warning: making these calls will more than likely do a number on your ego.)
A Milwaukee bookstore owner looks at what makes for an excellent drive-by (or stop-by) signing, from his point of view. You can read his account of a "dreamy" drive-by signing here.
By: Pinky,
on 5/7/2010
On May 10th, 1876, President Ulysses S. Grant stood near the front steps of Memorial Hall to formally open the Centennial Exhibition and invite the world to see how much America had grown since 1776. The Centennial Exhibition served not only as America’s 100th birthday party, but more importantly was the third World’s Fair to be held in the United States! Did you know that bananas, kindergarten and the telephone were first introduced to many Americans at the fair?
Opening day of the Centennial Exhibition, May 10, 1876
View from the steps of Memorial Hall, looking toward the Main Exhibition Building. The bleacher seating was for the VIPs—Centennial Commission members, U.S. and foreign political figures and special guests.
Image Courtesy, Robby Cohen Collection
In addition to introducing America as an industrialized nation, the Centennial Exhibition also introduced the world to numerous new and exciting discoveries and inventions. The Centennial closed on November 10, 1876, and in those short six months over 10 million people had come to Philadelphia to see and experience the excitement and grandeur of the Centennial Exhibition!
On Monday, we will be celebrating the 134th anniversary of opening day with special Centennial themed programming throughout the museum. The day’s programming is intended to highlight major themes of the Centennial Exhibition, while introducing our young audience to the concept of history through age appropriate, familiar, and fun activities.
Kids will be able to paint, explore transportation of the period, and play with reproduction Froebel blocks throughout the day in the Program Room. The Story Castle will feature carnival themed stories at 10:30 and 3:30. Visitors will get the opportunity to interact with collections objects during a stereograph themed KidGlove Program at 1:00 in the Centennial Train Station. In addition, there will be parades in the Centennial Train Station at 12:00 and 2:00.
And grown-ups, don’t worry we didn’t forget about you, we will be offering special $10 guided Centennial Tours at 2:00 Saturday, May 8th to Monday, May 10th.
By: Pinky,
on 3/25/2010
Hi everyone! Today I have a very special Centennial History post for you! I spoke to Stacey Swigart, Curator of Collections at Please Touch Museum, who told me about "Old Abe" the Eagle. Read on for the exciting story!
Ahgamahwegezig (also known as "Chief Sky") was a Chippewa Indian who captured a female bald eagle on the Flambeau River in Wisconsin in the mid-nineteenth century. According to stories, Chief Sky sold the eagle to a man for a bushel of corn. There are different accounts, but at some point, someone sold the eagle to a Company "C" of the Eight Wisconsin military unit ready to head out on campaign in 1861 for a few dollars during the Civil War. The men named the eagle "Old Abe" after the president, Abraham Lincoln.
Official Centennial portrait of "Old Abe" the War Eagle (Courtesy Robby Cohen Collection)
Reverse of the official photograph of "Old Abe." The former owner of this photograph glued a newspaper clipping reporting the death of the eagle from 1881. (Courtesy Robby Cohen Collection)\
By: April Henry,
on 3/12/2010
The LA Times looks at book tours, including one couple with books from small presses who financed a 8,500-mile, 27-day tour for just $2,500. They slept on stranger’s couches, relatives bought them a set of tires, and friends gave them gift cards to Starbucks and McDonalds.
The article also looks at a more traditional tour. And it looks at the tours for Dan Chaon (I loved his You Remind Me of Me and was thrilled to meet him at Wordstock), and Rebecca Skloot (we have emailed! I know her parents!), who both have academic connections. “Universities have speakers' budgets, which can offset the cost of travel, but because publishers' publicity departments and academic committees work on vastly different schedules, they haven't collaborated much. It takes an insider like Chaon or Rebecca Skloot, an assistant professor at the University of Memphis, to navigate the territory. Skloot, whose "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" intertwines journalism, race, class and medical ethics, built a 100-day book tour incorporating talks at medical institutes, creative writing classes and bookstores.”
The article also asserts that signed stock can’t be returned, and says that’s one reason authors tour. But I don’t think that’s true. A book with just a signature in it doesn’t lose value. A book that says, “Greg, it was great to meet you tonight” does lose value and can’t be returned. I have been on tour in states I have never been in before and opened up a book to find my own signature staring back at me. With luck, you are still using the same pen, and you look up, smile, and say, “How would you like me to personalize that?”
Read the full article here.
By: Pinky,
on 6/29/2009
By: Venetia Butterfield,
on 2/24/2009
I've lived in Hackney for almost nine years now. That's 31 years short of urban magus Iain Sinclair's 40 in the borough. In Hackney time Sinclair puts me in short trousers.
Like Sinclair, I am also an interloper. I came to London in my early twenties, and I've put down roots. My daughter was born in Homerton Hospital just eight weeks ago; so for me there will for ever be a connection to Hackney.
And it is the connections people have with the borough that drive Sinclair's book, Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire.
On Saturday, I got the chance to join an Art Bus tour organised around Sinclair's book and his relationship with three Hackney artists. We met up at the studio of the Dickensian-named Oona Grimes in Finsbury Park. Grimes has provided the interior illustrations to the book. She and Sinclair first collaborated together over a shared interest in the Elizabethan magician Dr Dee. Her studio contains two enormous presses and large, heavily stained housings for her acid baths. You get the sense that there's industry in her artistry.
I leafed through her wonderful a is ..., which consisted of a series of prints of imaginary cities, from A–Z. Samuel Butler, Tarkovsky, Borges and others were represented. That was our leaping-off point. The fake, the contrived, the unreal. We got on the bus: suitably steeped in mythology it was time to hit Hackney.
The Art Bus was an old Routemaster which puttered off through Stoke Newington. On board they were serving gin and tonics. We were promised music, and there was: a single iPod and a pair of headphones made its way along the upper deck.
Our first stop was in London Fields. Even before we got off the bus it was clear something was happening. There was white and blue police tape everywhere. There were solitary policemen standing by said tape to ensure we obeyed its implied injunction not to cross it. Iain Sinclair led us away from the tape and the police to what looked at first sight to be a garage. It was an artist's studio. I noticed later that the tape seemed to surround the studio, like we'd somehow got inside the cordon without being noticed or having noticed. Boundaries dissolve in Sinclair's company.
Jock MacFadyen's work reminds me of the paintings of Peter Doig. Large canvases, hypnotically vast spaces. MacFadyen's works are also confections. He takes buildings, places and transports them. Sinclair told us he was interested in the retrieval of sorts that the paintings had become. Many of MacFadyen's paintings show buildings that no longer exist. These are ghost buildings, they survive only on canvas, filtered through MacFadyen's imagination.
We piled on the bus for what would be my last stop. Into Hackney Wick where we visited an artists' commune (much to their indifference) and then across the road to Mother Studios. Both the commune and the art gallery lie on one side of the Hertford Union Canal; on the other side lies the Blue Wall, which protects/conceals/hides/obscures the Olympic building site.
We had an audience with the artist Stephen Cornford, whose work was on display in the Elevator Gallery. His spinning guitars were both violent and unsettling, but he was reassuringly friendly and told us of his previous project which was to trespass all over the Olympic site while evading the security. He liked the fact that this private land had been bought for the nation, but liked less the reality that though it was considered to now belong to all of us we weren't allowed on it. The contradiction appealed to him and he set out to explore it. The Blue Wall is more of a challenge than the white and blue tape.
The Art Bus was heading off to a bistro, but I was heading home to my partner and my daughter. Along the canal, with the Blue Wall to the east, I watched the sun set over Hackney in the west.
Colin Brush
Senior Copywriter
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Thanks to Geoff Wagner and the rest of the crew at Chronicle Books for for taking the time to show me around the Office. It’s a beautiful space with lots of nice architectural details including exposed bricks, beams and piping. Large globe fixtures dot the ceilings and remind me of the original Lightolier ball lights that are often found in the Eichler homes of the Bay Area. The entrance to the building hosts a bookshop open to the public. Towards the front of the shop, new books are showcased on top of rustic planks of wood recycled from one of the building’s previous tenants. The top floor features an employee lounge with floor to ceiling window walls and nice views of the Soma district.
I was excited to see some of the new projects their working on. Chronicle works with some of my favorite illustrators and designers, so I knew they would have plenty of good stuff in development. They did not disappoint. Recently released and upcoming projects include work with Eleanor Grosch of PushmePullyou and Grady McFerrin.
While I was there I picked up a copy of Core Memory - A Visual Survey of Vintage Computers. I’ve been wanting this book for a while so, I was glad to finally get my hands on it. I’m curious what other titles from Chronicle have you guys been digging? Anyone else pick up the Factory Records book?
Lastly, shout outs to Chronicle’s in house design department. Lots of great work coming from there.
No Tags©2008 -Visit us at Grain Edit.com for more goodies.
By: April Henry,
on 8/1/2008
But most authors don’t get paid on book tours. It kind of lumps together tours and speaking engagements, which aren’t necessarily or even often the same thing.
The article says, “Doris Kearns Goodwin, whose presidential histories include “Team of Rivals,” about Lincoln’s cabinet, charges as much as $40,000 an appearance and some seasons averages a lecture a week.” And Richard “Russo said he’d gone “in two decades from $500 and happy to get it to something closer to $20,000.””
The article doesn’t mention school visits, which are usually paid. That was a shock to me when I first entered the YA world, but now I drink the Kool-Aid.
Read more of the article here.
*Whew!* I'm back from my whirlwind trip to Anaheim for ALA's Annual Conference. I left almost before it started since my main thrust was my presentation at the Diversity Leadership Institute, which you can read about over at the ALSC blog! A truly inspiring and informative event!
After the Institute was over, I headed out with my colleague Lana for dinner and we ended up in Downtown Disney. It was quite a sight! We ended up having some pretty delicious tapas before calling it a night.
Next up was the ISS sponsored Independent School Libraries tour. We were fortunate enough to visit two incredibly different and amazing libraries. The first was at the Chadwick School in Palos Verdes. A beautiful facility with a reading room featuring beanbag chairs that our middle school kids would die for! Librarian Sarah Knetzer-Davis gave us a fabulous tour, and went above and beyond by delivering some of our ISS members back to conference so that they could make their sessions! Thank you Sarah!
Next up was the Crossroads School in Santa Monica. This felt a bit like home to me as Crossroads is a progressive school, and I have the feeling that many of the students there are quite similar to the ones I have! We visited the Middle and High School library, and it is an amazing site. Most of (if not all of) Crossroads is made up of buildings that used to be used for industrial purposes. The librarians there were great and it sounds like the library is a super active place during the school year, with the students really feeling at home there!
The afternoon was taken up with an ALSC 101 session. Even though I have been a librarian for YEARS (about 12 now), I have been active more with YALSA. Now I am looking to dive into ALSC, so I figured that I would head on over and meet some folks! We had a rousing get to know you fest, and I came away with a better sense of the organization (as well as an author contact for next year! Woot!)
Finding dinner on Friday night was a bit more difficult. Many places had an hour wait. Wandering home I happened upon Gandhi Palace, where I had some really, REALLY good Indian food. So if you are still at Conference and like Indian food, you really should head on over for some dinner!
Then a 4:10 a.m. wake up call this morning, and here I am back in NYC. I'm a bit sad that I didn't get a chance to head onto the exhibit floor, but I am happy to be home!
By: Trisha, Gayle, and Jolene,
on 2/4/2008
Geek High by Piper Banks
Miranda’s romance writer mother is going to England to do research, leaving Miranda behind with her father, whom she’s had little contact with since her parents divorced, and a stepmother and stepsister she does not get along with. Plus, not only is Miranda blackmailed into organizing her brainy school’s unpopular winter dance, her crush appears to be falling for her stepsister, Hannah. But Hannah does have a cute male friend who just may be interested in Miranda…
I’m not sure why, but for some reason I thought this was going to be a very lightweight, insubstantial read. It wasn’t, not as much as I was expecting, at any rate. But it was still the perfect post-Cybils read—entertaining, well-written, and, thank god, no one died or was abused.
The Sweet Far Thing by Libba Bray
I won’t say much about this one because I’m afraid of giving away too much of the story. (But if you want to talk, particularly about the denouement, I am so up for a chat about it.) And really, where hasn’t this been reviewed? I think it was even the lead book review in People a couple of weeks ago, if I remember correctly. I will say that there was enough to the story to satisfy me, and I absolutely love the last line of the book.
Also, I came up with a playlist for Gemma last year, around the time the book’s publication was first announced. But after reading the book, it changed significantly, so here’s what is currently on my TSFT playlist:
I realize I’m totally breaking a playlist rule with two Iron & Wine songs on the same playlist but I was unable to pick just one, and I think the sequence of “Icebound Stream,” “Faded from the Winter,” and “Misery and Mountains, Arrows and Bows” works perfectly, so there you go.
TSFT was reviewed by: Angieville, Becky, Bookshelves of Doom, Oops…Wrong Cookie, among others.
Reading Resolutions update:
Tea: The Drink that Changed the World by Laura C. Martin was the non-fiction book I read in January. Let’s see, I like tea, I like microhistories… Is it any surprise I picked this up? But as fascinating as I found it, it was too brief for my tastes, so I plan on reading The Story of Tea and Liquid Jade, as well.
And, as mentioned earlier, the translated book I read was The Redbreast by Jo Nesbø, translated by Don Bartlett. In 1999, a Norwegian detective makes a potentially embarrassing mistake. Transferred to a new department and position, he comes across a report that piques his interest. Full of twists that never feel forced, this book had me totally hooked, especially after the first World War II scene. There were occasional mentions of events that I am sure occurred in the previous (not yet released in the US) book, which once again really makes me wish publishers would bring these series over *in order*, like it appears Vertical is doing with Shinjuku Shark. (February’s rapidly becoming translated-from-Japanese month for me, since I’ve already got five such novels checked out/on hold.)
Hi Marge, We have Brownie packs visit, and although we're a few thousand miles away, it sounds as though we have the very same visitors, timing and boisterousness! I love the idea of bar-coding cataloguing the kids!
We all share so many commonalities. That's why I love to hear from others what works - and doesn't - and am happy to share what I know!