Does touring matter?
Life Sentences has gone from #28 to #17, just missing the printed list for the week of April 5.
So, I’m going to go out on a limb and say, yep. And now I’m going to go out on the town and have a burger.
LS: The Perpetual Argument
i read this too quickly and thought it said ‘touching,’ and not ‘touring.’ Well, not so different.
congrats, and most sorry to have missed last night. in your copious free time, when will you post the rest of your schedule on your LL website? i am putting some wicked good juju into the wish that there will be another date locally!
break a leg in nawlins.
//k
Congratulations! I got a copy today, and I’m looking forward to diving in.
It helps that you’ve written and outstanding novel.
However, seeing the mediocre to poor novels that arrive on the best seller lists, maybe it doesn’t matter that much. Though it should.
Here’s to #1!
My apologies, I have been bad about updating the sked, but I can say with a (relatively) clear conscience that there’s nothing new in the area. Except, I think I might be presenting a film at the Maryland Film Festival in May.
And I know it won’t work with your work sked, Karen, but I’m in a lovely bookstore in Sykesville MD Monday night.
What Doris Ann said*, and regarding touring –
I think Indiana was the key; you should stop back here again!
Presumeably it’s the same everywhere, but at the Carmel event it seemed that, when we were all bunched up at the book table, looking at all the temptations – both before the event and after it concluded – many folks would murmur stage whispers such as “which one is best?” – and a response or two from other LL readers would prompt them to pick up a second or third book! In my recollection (always suspect!), it seemed like 4 or 5 folks (who already had Life Sentences in their hands) who asked me, took my suggestion and added Hardly Knew Her to their purchase. It’s the wisdom of crowds.
I’m at about 250 pages into Life Sentences, and proceeding slowly; it’s good stuff, and I don’t want to rush the experience…although next up for me is What the Dead Know (but I may save that for after I read Meacham’s Andrew Jackson book American Lion)
Anyway – I cast my vote for a full-blown, novelist’s-eye-view review of the New Orleans hamburger experience
I think this would and will happen to your book even if you didn’t and don’t tour. Loved it.
On the other hand, maybe what the tour needs in order to make that jump into the printed list is a stop in Edwards, CO!
Sandra,
You know that means the world to me. By the way, I just got an advance copy of Lizzie Skurnick’s Shelf Discovery, her book of essays about re-reading children’s and YA titles. (HAPPY ENDINGS ARE ALL ALIKE is represented; I wish I had time to contribute an essay on TRYING HARD TO HEAR YOU.) I did have time to give you a shout-out in the intro, in which I cited you as one of the writers whose achievements are only more remarkable when one re-reads your books from an adult perspective.
Congratulations.
Hope it’s a great burger
And it is somewhat oddly (or unexpectedly) affecting that the book keeps track (more or less) of the date –
so that another nice thing about reading Life Sentences slowly over the past week, is that it has been almost entirely synchronous with the book’s early spring season.
At this stage you are established enough that people know how good your work is and so touring may no longer matter that much to book sales but it does matter to your readers; we enjoy the opportunity to meet you and hear what you have to say about the book, etc. We do appreciate the sacrifice of time and energy on your part to tour. (Of course, if you had not said you write while touring, I would be saying skip the tour and stay home and write!)