Your Public Best - Lillian Brown [92]
ON A BOOK TOUR
Let us assume that you have written a successful or potentially successful book, and your publisher has asked you to go on a publicity tour. Up to this point, your time may have been spent in writing the book, and not talking about the material contained in it. However, you are now possibly recognized as an authority in your field, and you have the opportunity to transmit to the public the information contained in your book. All of a sudden, you have to appear on radio and television interviews and show up at bookstores for book-signing sessions.
Authors on book tours fare best when the publisher takes the responsibility for scheduling the talk-show appearances and itinerary. The publisher may hire an outside firm to make the necessary and complicated arrangements. Sometimes the task is assigned to the publicity department of the publishing company.
The basic procedure is for the publisher to send descriptive material and a review copy of your book to the various TV and radio talk-show producers in key cities. You will probably be booked for several appearances each day. The person setting up your tour will usually arrange for someone to accompany you to each studio or bookstore. This person will be familiar with the formats of each show and will help you understand what to expect. You will encounter a variety of formats and broadcast situations, and it is helpful to be briefed in advance for each one.
In order to conduct a successful book tour, you will need to assemble a travel wardrobe and look critically at your appearance, all the while thinking about the image you wish to project. Review chapter one on “Your Personal Appearance,” particularly the section on selecting a travel wardrobe. Remember you will need only a few carefully chosen clothes, because you will never be seen twice by the same audience.
You will travel from city to city, from station to station, and from audience to audience. With luck, the scheduled appearances will not be too tightly scheduled, and you will have time between them to freshen up and collect your thoughts. It is important to arrive at each location relaxed and ready rather than visibly harried and tense.
Don’t forget to carry a little emergency kit with you containing a fresh blouse or shirt, extra hose or socks, a snack of fruit or food bars for quick energy, and powder for your shiny nose.
Recently, I ran into a famous movie star at a TV studio whose book-tour schedule had been set up by an out-of-town person unfamiliar with the cities on the tour. She was promoting her autobiography—the result of several years of hard work. But instead of being able to enjoy her book tour, she was quite frantic, having to rush from interview to studio to book-signing party on an impossibly tight schedule.
She was tired, she’d lost her coat at one stop (it was a rainy day in early winter), she had the beginning of a run in her stocking, she had not eaten lunch, and she had a spot on her new silk dress that she found embarrassing. Instead of arriving at each site relaxed, in control, and “up” for the interview, she was rushing into each place slightly late, ushered in by an apologizing public relations person, and turning down requests to autograph her book by staff at the studio—all due to a too-tight, impossible-to-keep schedule of events.
Try not to let this happen to you. Get a copy of each day’s schedule to approve before it is finalized. But if you do find yourself in a similar situation, do anything you can to minimize your reaction to the terrible schedule.
At some TV stations, your interviewer will come in with makeup, but no provision has been made for you to get made up. In such a case, hopefully, there is time for you to excuse yourself to apply your own powder in the restroom.
Once you are seated on the set, you will have to answer the same questions over and over on show after