There was a great sense of triumph at Battenkill Books last night as Maria and I joined Connie Brooks and her mother Marilyn to sign and prepare to ship the 1,000th copy of my book “Second Chance Dogs” that was sold there. I wanted to share some of the lessons learned from my new book tour before they fade, and I am already thinking about how to apply these lessons to my next book “Saving Simon,” out next Fall. “Second Chance Dog” is by no means done, I think it is just getting started, I think there will be considerable word of mouth after Christmas, but I think the active part of the book tour is winding down. The book, like any loved child, has to make its own way in the world now.

I need to finish my next book, I don’t have the resources to keep giving things a way, and I need to focus on my growing creative center, the blog and it’s various social media offshoots. Also, I’m tired as well as exhilarated, new book tours are personal and draining. They take a lot of work and planning.

– The Internet is a profoundly significant and empowering tool for writers like myself, who are not on Oprah’s radar or selling millions of copies. Through my blog and social media pages I have created a new kind of platform, a new community that is not dependent on reviews, book tours, bookstores or public appearances. My readers know me, follow me. My job is to provide them with meaningful content – the blog, photos, writing – and in exchange, they become an audience for my work. Publishers have largely abandoned publicity and marketing, their  traditional venues for attracting readers are gone or declining, so the writers who wish to remain relevant must understand their readers and go where they have gone – the Internet.

– We live in an era of incentives. People expect something in exchange for buying something – discounts, gifts, rebates. I grasped this early on and offered many incentives – dog food, photos, free books, contests, give-away topics, potholders from Maria, bookmarks from George Forss, everything I could find to give away. Incentives are expensive and very new to authors,  but they attract attention, generate excitement and they sell books.

– Connecting the old with the new. The new book tour doesn’t require abandoning all the elements of traditional publishing. From the first, I established a strong connection with my local bookstore Battenkill Books. I wanted to help the bookstore, but I also wanted to position the book as something more than just a book. It was (is) also an opportunity for people to make broader statements about what they care about: bookstores, buying local, community, individuality, a response to the corporatizing of America, which makes many people uncomfortable. In shocking numbers, people responded to this, as well as my efforts to advance the book as a Christmas gift.

I don’t know if the Battenkill experiment sold more books than people would otherwise have bought, but it sure felt good and gave the tour a personal focus and rallying point. I will surely do it again, if Connie survives this round.

– The book itself. None of this works without a book people want to read and like. It was important to be authentic, it was important that the book had happy endings, it was important that the book tied into many of the themes that are a part of my writing on the blog – spirituality, a meaningful life, learning about dogs, aging with grace and purpose, overcoming fear in a fearful world. The book was never totally separate from the blog or the blog from the book, one flowed from the other, something many readers could relate to and respond to.

– Perspective. I set aside one month to work on the new book tour. I asked Random House to forego the traditional book tour – flying me around the country – so that I could focus on the book here on the blog without interruption. This worked, it is simply much  more effective and economical to reach out from my existing platform than to fly to distant cities to talk to small numbers of people. Is something lost when this happens? Yes, absolutely, it is very beneficial for the author and the reader to meet one another in different parts of the country. I hope I get to do it again. Random House, I suspect, was happy to do it, they saved a lot of money and the book went quickly to three printings. I understood I was giving the publisher permission to do little to promote the book, to turn that over to me. I think it was a good deal, I appreciate the chance to take responsibility for my work.

– Positioning. The book is, as all of my books are, somewhat controversial. Many of the people who call themselves dog and animal lovers simply do not want to read about people. Although most reviews were very generous, some people were quite upset that Maria and I were in the book at all. This reflects in part the new niche marketing in publishing and on Amazon and other places, as with politics, many people pursue narrow and very sharply defined interests, I will always resist this, I think my books are as much about people as they are about dogs and I simply to not want to write so narrowly as to exclude humans from the story. I wish the marketing of my books was not confined to the animal and dog topics, I like to think they are broader than that, but this is a part of publishing it is not possible for me to fight. This trend is relatively new and I find it confining. “Second Chance Dog” is about life, not just dogs, and I am proud of that. It is generally not even listed among mainstream memoirs or non-fiction book.

These are some of the lessons I’ve learned from my new book tour, which I feel was an unqualified success. I know it is not something many writers like or approve of, or will want to do themselves, we each have to make our own way. For me, this issue has always been relevance, I intend to remain relevant as a writer. And I understand that day by day, the blog is becoming my book, my great work.