My writing life is continuing to undergo change, and I will continue to share that with you. My 23red book tour is coming up in November – for “The Second Chance Dog: A Love Story.” This is a book about loving a dog, but more importantly, about loving a human. It is never too late for love, or so I believe and so I hope the book persuades. But I think my next book tour needs to be very different from the others, and I think my publisher will agree with me and give it a shot. Publicity has changed, sales have changed, bookstores have changed, and so have the habits of readers. I need to change too.

I ought to say I love book tours. This is the only time all year when the writer gets to travel across the country and meet readers, talk to them, sign books for them, meet bookstore owners and salespeople. Writing is a somewhat solitary affair, and it is wonderful to look readers in the eye and listen to them.  I get to see different cities, get driven around by media escorts or limo drivers, and I so love room service, a far cry from farm chores. But it is harder and harder for mid-list writers to get the publicity that book tours feed on. Bookstores have few ways of attracting people to events any longer.

Scores of papers used to review my books, and I was almost always interviewed by the local paper, or NPR or commercial radio station. Now only a handful of papers have book writers or editors and many big papers are gone altogether. Bookstores struggle to draw readers into their stores, and when they do, many of them go home and buy e-books. I draw strong crowds but it is increasingly apparent to me at least that this isn’t a good way to sell my books any longer, it doesn’t make sense given the alternatives. I need a different kind of book tour for me to survive as a writer, and I intend to survive as a writer.

This afternoon, I had a meeting with Random House executives and editors to talk about the book tour and promotion for this book, and I suggested that we scrap our conventional notions of what a book tour is – traveling around the country to different bookstores for readings – and do something else. The meeting was a good one, we talked and listened to one another. I was excited, and I think they were too.

I confess that what I was proposing was somewhat painful for me. I’ve had 22 book tours in my writing life, and I hate to let go of the idea. But I am also excited about the prospects of forging a new kind of book tour using my blog, social media and the widening platform I have been constructing for my work – bedlamfarm.com,  Facebook,  YouTube, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, Instagram, my forthcoming Podcasts. I plan to have a book tour that runs on and offline for 45 days, from early November right towards Christmas. I plan to give copies of “Second Chance Dog” away to people who come onto my digital realm to ask questions or offer comments on the issues the book raises – finding love, the importance of animals in relationships and the remarkable story of brave and loving Frieda. And we will be discussing those things. I might take Frieda up to the Adirondacks where she was abandoned and put up a video on YouTube. I will do readings from the book on my podcast. We’ll have themes to talk about each week, photos and videos.

It will not be an all virtual or digital tour. I will do readings at bookstores around the Northeast, perhaps fly to a city or two elsewhere in the country if Random House wants me to, and do interviews with magazines, online websites and print and radio outlets.

This is a fairly new idea for commercial publishing, I think it is the future. It is a bold step but I feel it is the right step.  I am excited about talking about this book and selling it and showing that writing is not fading away or imperiled, but simply changing form and delivery. I don’t believe bookstores will disappear, nor do I believe print books will disappear. But changes in publishing and marketing are making book tours obsolete for writers who are not discovered by Oprah or are superstars in their own right. I have been working hard on new media platforms for my books for some years now, and I want to put these new forms of publishing to work and hopefully blaze a trail or two. Nothing has been decided, and this isn’t all up to me, but I feel after the meeting that it is a strong and positive direction for me to take. I think a lot of writers would disagree with me about the book tour, many are strongly committed to the book tour form of sales. I understand.

When you good people ask me if I am coming to  your city, the answer will more and more likely be no, it is too expensive and the returns too small. But you can meet me here, and hear me on my Podcast and talk to me on Facebook and come and see the Frieda board I am considering for Pinterest. There will be all kinds of ways for you to experience my stories. And I will surely be appearing at some bookstores.

The book tour will kick off at Battenkill Books in Cambridge, N.Y., my local bookstore, my favorite bookstore, on November 5. I’m sure other bookstores will plan events around the book that will make it worth while to go to them. But mostly, my focus will be online – my blog and venues, and other websites and online magazines. I plan events, discussions, Q & A’s online, almost every day. It will hopefully be entertaining and informative.

That is the nature of our world – change and acceptance. If this happens, I will greatly miss flying into some distant city and wandering the downtown at night soaking up the scene, lying in bed eating my oatmeal while reading a book I bought at the bookstore the night before. I will even miss airport food. And I will mostly miss the lines of people who wait to meet me and talk about my books. No book tour will replace that. Still, I will be making some joyous noise for my work until the end, and I hope you will be reading and listening. I will share the experience, as always.