I have an exciting weekend planned: I’m taking my paper airplanes and chocolate macadamia nuts on the road. I’ll be doing a multi-state book signing road trip with three lovely and talented author friends.
We’ll be signing in Dallas at Moon’s LDS Bookstore tomorrow, July 15th, from 6:00-8:00 pm. Then bright and early Saturday morning, we’ll be headed to Hastings in Duncan, Oklahoma, for a 9:00-11:00 am signing, and then zipping to Springdale, Arkansas and the Beehive Mercantile from 4:00-7:00 pm.
We’ve been planning this adventure for months, and we are all very excited.
And yet…
Back when the idea of this trip was first being discussed, my July calendar was wide open. Now this book tour is one of five out-of-state trips this month, and the only one less than three days long. Gas was also much less expensive back then, too.
So while I’m still very excited about this opportunity to travel the southern plains and share Bumpy Landings with potential readers, the whole affair has become more of a sacrifice than originally expected.
In fact, this whole “Published Author” gig has become a bit of a sacrifice. Selling books takes time–a lot of time. Time that I could be spending writing Into The Wind or Space Corp General or Tomorrow’s Lies or The Generations of Enoch or any of the dozens of ideas I have jotted in my notepad app.
Selling books also takes money. Money for gas, for bookmarks, for web hosting and conference sponsorships and eval books and packaging and postage. And let’s not forget the chocolates used to bribe customers and bookstores to pay attention to my story. I can’t tell you how much money I’ve spent for each book sold, but I can guarantee at this point it’s several times more than my royalty.
I’d been warned; I’d been anticipating it; now it’s here. And I’m glad.
In an email to a friend this past week, I said, “One day, you and I will both have publishers handing us heavily-packed itineraries and hefty expense accounts to go out and meet our adoring public, and they will want to know what it was like when we were first starting out as authors. We can whip out the story of this signing, and how we knew it would never pay for itself, but the chance go and promote our debut novels across the south during a sweltering heatwave in cars that ran on expensive gasoline with a group of friends who shared the same dream was simply too good to pass up.”
Bumpy Landings is my first book, and it’s been a challenge getting the word out. Most established authors I know have similar stories about their hard-fought road to success. That’s the road I’m on, and believe me–it’s a road with a toll.
But it’s also a road filled with many rewards and blessings, one I am truly grateful to be on. So I am glad for this chance to pay my dues. And hopefully, one day, I’ll be able to inspire others who are trying to find their way along the same road, and struggling to pay their own dues.
