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Nexus Newsletter

Nexus merges the world of the arts & business communication to boost content quality and impact

 

Writers’ Book Tours – are they thrilling or drudgery?

In a June,
1993 issue of Esquire magazine, fishing writer and budding novelist Thomas McGuane managed to
combine the toil and trouble of a writer’s book tour
with a quail hunting and trout fishing trip in Texas.
The Sturm und Drang came together superbly well. 

“Even on my short holiday home,”
McGuane’s story began, “my wife thought I ought to be
fishing; she said my mind was ‘in ribbons’. I was going
to be back on the road so soon I really just wanted to
curl up somewhere. In the year of a book tour, an author
saunters from airport to airport supremely confident of
the value of his talks and readings. It’s a crying shame
that this feeling gives way to an all–consuming fear
that his first auditors will turn up in the later cities
and discover his bon mots reduced to cheese-skulled
yammering and the geekish didacticism of the mentally
bankrupt.”

Those words forever endeared me to
McGuane’s work as he continued his writing
career. I supposed he still dragged his weary length
through book promotional tours, finding the circus
ever-gruelling. What happened to that reluctant book
sales-promotion-tourist, I wondered

Through the intervening decade,
that magazine-clipping lay in my all-purposes
bag. But it came to mind
recently when I saw David Baldacci’s 2007 tour schedule
spread out in his web site. In Lee County, Florida,
via by the magic of internet and email, plus a deal of
on-the-ground assistance, I tried to catch up with the
vastly popular novelist to see how he fared “on the
road”. He and his organisation were launching and
promoting his newest book, Simple Genius. It turned out to be a difficult assignment. In fact, I
have to report my own failure ..

Tried to join a moving
train?

I had submitted a
request to a book readers’ group in Lee County, Florida:
”Is
there some way, that you could contact a writer or two
for me from your region (members of the group), who
would enjoy writing and illustrating their own
individual reports (250-500 words) on the happenings of
next weekend, there in Florida?”

As a former marketer,
writer and publicist coming out of the cold of a
six-year sabbatical, I had to confront the spectre of
emoluments entering the equation, and so, hastened to add:
”If they (my enthusiastic volunteer reporters) are
inexperienced, that is quite OK – we would be pleased to
assist them with shaping and editing for publication as
a practical exercise for us both! If they are
professionals, we can negotiate a small fee or donation
to a nominated charity.” 

Despite the best efforts
of those hard-pressed administrators at Lee County,
technical problems later afflicted their nominee and the
project then faltered. We failed to secure a direct report to
put before you about: what goes on when a promotional
publishers’ cavalcade hits town; what were the benefits
for both parties involved; what were the highlights and
lowlights of the weekend there in the sunny south of the
USA when a formidable scrum of writers strutted their
stuff? We will have to wonder, but other writers have
since filled us in on some of the issues. See below

As
an old-fashioned, old European courtesy, I also emailed
David Baldacci via his website, to advise him that I
would be briefing someone from among his host audience
on that sun-soaked weekend in Florida , and would ask
them to report their experience of an author on his book
marketing “wagon tour”.

Deep
into the production phase of another book, which I
assume was Stone Cold – due out this autumn (fall),
David was unable to respond. But through the kindness of Deborah Hocutt, Executive Director, David
Baldacci Enterprises, I did manage to secure a comment
from the writer to a question about the impact of tours
on the writing process itself. 

Baldacci said: "I’m fortunate in that
I can write anywhere under any conditions. I write on
the plane, train, in hotel rooms. Wherever I am or
whatever I’m doing I can think about the next idea, plot
point or character arc.

 I’m
not a writer who counts words as an artificial goal. I
truly enjoy the process of writing and creating and not
even a book tour can get in the way of that." 

 That
was pretty good I thought – not what I had sought
really, but here was a twinkle of an insight into
both the famous man and his modus operandi, rolling out successful book after successful book in
what seems an unstoppable process

 

An
Unlikely Couple

The Montana rancher, writer, fisherman Thomas McGuane and Margaret
Atwood, Canadian top-rating writer, have something in
common: an abhorrence of the book publishers’
promotional circuit ..

First, Thomas McGuane:  
Where to start in the quest to unearth an author one
doesn’t know personally (but feels he does) and this,
after a pause of thirteen years? As is often the case
for journalists living away from their old stamping
grounds, the internet was as good a place to start as
say, the local library might have been. But it’s all in
German.

Entering simply ‘Thomas
McGuane’ in as search engine, I found one such in a
split second: Thomas McGuane, same region of USA, but this
one was the son of the ‘original’. His response to an
impertinent inquiry about his ‘Dad’ was disarming and as
instructive as one could ever have ever hoped.. Here it
is in full (with his kind permission):

"Thanks for getting in
touch. I have my web site idling as I have just moved
into a new workshop and have made many changes in the
doing

When I was a child the
(book promo) trips were shorter and in ‘93 I was well
out of college

 Luckily for Dad many of his fishing
trips lasted as long as a book tour! He has worked hard
to make his life like that

 I can tell you that he’ll
call from the road with another airline cold, carpal
tunnel syndrome and almost no voice at all to tell me
that this is definitely the last one! I have forwarded
your e-mail to him. Take care. Sincerely, Thomas."

Oh yes!

" …
have made many changes in the doing."

                                      and

"he’d
call from the road with another airline cold …"

That ease, simplicity
and grace accompanied by directness in the writing, suggested
another would-be writer. But this man was now a knife
craftsman of widely recognised skills. living far away
from towns, cities and publishing houses. There had been
a time, as the younger Thomas emerged from the same
university as his Dad ( Michigan), when the prospect of
a literary life  beckoned strongly. But he chose
a road less travelled.

Charm and quietness
seems catching in this family. How simple it had been for
me to learn about the author and the son. How refreshing
to have received a golden hint about the true reasons
younger-Thomas had sought peace, inspiration and craft
in Japan – in the ancient trade of a blade smith.

 The elder
Thomas speaks with respect about his son’s choice; a
respect that seems to border on more than admiration and
parental pride. For the author, immersion in the life of
a cattle rancher, partially funded by his literary
output, had presented him with his own still place. One
wondered whether David Baldacci would fare: a lawyer so
successfully turned writer and now poised at the leading
edge of that sales scramble: the modern commercial book
world? Would he and others along with him for the ride.
weather the strain as well as the "Westerner" managed
it?

So
this was what had transpired for McGuane over the
thirteen or so years?

 Although born
and raised in Michigan, Thomas McGuane (Sr.) has lived
in the Blue Sky Country more or less continuously since
he entered teen-age – and now, he’s ensconced with his
family, dogs and horses in Sweetwater County, Montana. When he gives a public reading at his local book store,
McGuane drives 90 miles to Bozeman. There he is not
exactly at ease with all the other ‘locals’ who write 
what he terms "pastel versions of the west",
places where
hardened frontier denizens stand proud, their 
frilly-skirted ladies alongside. Not his cup of tea.
McGuane’s
books replace the cowboys and Indians with ordinary
folks afflicted with  "generalised anxiety
disorder".

At 67 Thomas McGuane
has written a dozen novels, a raft of screen plays and a
batch of non-fiction collections (related mostly to his
passions: fishing and equine pursuits. His fictional
subjects reflect a witty, keenly honed blade that points
at the
domestic preoccupations of American existence.

His
children live nearby and that feels good.

"Nothing
beats catching a trout on a dry fly," McGuane wrote for
Esquire in 1993, "unless it’s hooking a loathsome critic
with a line."

"As I
packed to go back on my  tour, I had my usual
thought that I would never see my home again – never see
my family; never see my dogs, Sadie, K.D, Ella, and Raba; never see the cats, DJ, and Mother … never see
those great shoes my wife is trying to get me to throw
out. Instead, I would simply die at a lonely lectern,
asking for a glass of water while voices from the
blackness inquire if a middle-aged, middle-western,
middle-class white male really thinks he … and so on,
You get the drift.

I was
ready to head back for that highway where it is always
autumn."

 

Margaret Atwood and Her LongPen ™ Concept

 A strange sort of outfit but the idea seems to be
catching on

If you  wonder where
30 year writing veteran Margaret Atwood is around now
(August September 2007),
you might try a hugely nature-conservation-oriented
tourism concern called Adventure Canada. She’s at sea
somewhere in Canada’s (still wet) wilds.

She’s
lady ‘of many parts, as it were.

Here for instance is the first FAQ
item on a web site for LongPen. It’s a
sort of touch-me-not
interviewing and book-signing setup that the author has developed
(or
had developed for her), from the start of this century.

Its concept harks back
to a 19th century idea of sending written messages by
wire. As you can see in our illustration of the most
recent public appearance of the gizmo, it works in
conjunction with screen projection and is a live contact
between author and reader, author and media, author and
author. Not only eliminates the hassle of following
gruesome travelling schedules, but its use has been
linked to substantial savings in (unburned) jet fuel
carbons. It won’t kill off book tours entirely or
destroy publishing extravaganzas like those in London,
Edinburgh, New York and Frankfurt book fairs, but it is
a unique and sensible step.

Atwood says: "At the end of November, 2004, Unotchit Inc., my newly
created company, did a small, by-invitation-only
demonstration of the earliest working model of our
remote book-signing device. No journalists were invited.
No press release was circulated. The point of the
demonstration was simply to see what publishers would
think of the idea — whether they would agree with us
that this device would expand possibilities for writers
and readers, as well as for publishers

As is
the way of the world, news leaked out despite us. The
industry magazine Quill & Quire did a small article, as
a result of which The Globe and Mail did one, and then
— it really is a global village! — the news travelled
around the world, with the BBC, the Guardian, the Los
Angeles Times and Business Week all doing pieces, and
many more in addition. We’ve had inquiries from as far
away as Taiwan. Now there’s a buzz on various Internet
blogs — is the whole thing a joke? — and "surveys"
have appeared, and editorial comments have been made. We
feel we’re in the Land O’ Magic Rumour.

The
primary questions have been answered in the main
information sheet posted on our Web page.

But here, in true
Agony Aunt style, are the answers to some of your more
anguished intimate questions" (end of
quote)

And so on. There we have an unguarded, hassle-free
glimpse of this writer and this writer’s general
approach to life!

Perhaps Margaret has  the answer  to book
signings at least , for now. The lean, hungry
journalists and  we enthusiastic bookworms are
another problem altogether.

And the industry itself?

-  Neil McPherson

 

Resources connected with this article:

• Guardian Unlimited http://books.guardian.co.uk/authors/ has a precise
  rundown on Margaret Atwood’s background, influences,
  adaptations. Plus useful sites and work online. (Professionalword.com subscribes to Guardian Unlimited online. )

• A superb 2002 interview
  with Thomas McGuane by Robert Birnbaum re: The Cadence of
  Grass by McGuane  was most useful: http://www.identitytheory.com/people/birnbaum46.html

• Lee County, Florida, USA 
  has good material and links for writers and
  readers in its library site where we read about David Baldacci’s appearance in March http://www.lee-county.com

• David Baldacci web
  site DavidBaldacci.com

• Emma Brockes‘
  helpful article on Thomas McGuane, called The lay of the land gave what we thought was a
  balanced view  of the writer, his relationship to
  the land and his style and attitudes. to the book
  industry and media. Contains comments about McGuane’s
  son Thomas and blade craft. You can read it online at
  the Guardian Unlimited site listed above.

• Comments from Thomas
  McGuane (Jr.) are held in he possession of this
  writer.

• The article by Thomas
  McGuane: Low Life, Deep Water  appeared 
  the June 1993 edition of Esquire magazine.

• Margaret Atwood’s
  slightly quaint , but nice, web site is: http://www.owtoad.com and the Atwood Society, a more ‘academic’ site is: www.cariboo.be.ca/atwood/

• The photographs of the
  writers were used from their own sites, except McGuane
  who does not have one, we think. We thank IdentityTheory.com for that.

• David Baldacci
  competition for business writers. Free. Book prize
  for winner.

Relax …newspapers safe from blog.

G’day reader,

Let’s look first, re media, at the plight of traditional media in the face of incursions or alleged incursions, by thingos like say, blogs.

So …

Here is an interesting response to the latest Corporation-Head Blog (CHB?) that was written and posted by Jonathan Schwartz, CEO of Sun Microsystems on 21st May:

The post is from reader journo Rick Merritt, and he says:

“As a print and Web trade journalist–who covers Sun–I was particualrly interested )sic) to see that while you promote the move to open software and online user-generated news, you also read two print newspapers. I won’t call you a dinosaur. But I will call BS on anyone who uses black and white thinking to say newspapers will die. TV didn’t kill radio and the Web won’t kill TV and print media. Each media will find its appropriate level as things settle out. Whatever the media, people will value reading reports both from peers and from talented experts weaving a story. Likewise I assume people will always value both free software and stuff they have to pay for, even from large monopolistic companies, when it gets some significant job done for them. So let’s stop hyping the Web and open source and start being realistic about finding where these new opportunities fit and where they don’t. BTW, what’s the other newspaper you read?
Posted by Rick Merritt on May 22, 2007 at 08:32 AM PDT # “

And what was it, pray, that young Richard the CEO had said, that set journo Rick into a-firing?

Here’s an excerpt:
the Head was..
Censoring Free Media (Or… Fighting Letters to the Editor)

I read two daily newspapers.

I know the world is moving away from printed media, and this admission marks me as a bit of a dinosaur – but there are all kinds of interesting parallels between the newspaper industry and the software industry. Both are undergoing tremendous change, creating havoc for some and opportunity for others.

The industries have much in common – minimally, they’re both rooted in creative writers (journalists and developers).
Traditional newspapers publish content produced by their employees. Writers and journalists have degrees and credentials, even awards for quality and integrity, like the Pulitzer Prize. To the extent editors allow the unwashed masses to contribute content to their publications, they host “Letters to the Editor,” typically limited to a single page, and heavily filtered. Non-professionals can apply for longer opinion or “OpEd” pieces, but those column inches are more frequently reserved for former prime ministers or (former) world bank presidents. Simplisitically, in the world of traditional print media, >99% of the content comes from employees, less than 1% comes from the community they serve. The editor is in control. ” quote endsbild-499.jpg

And so on. (John uses Arial and I like Verdana).

As an ex radio and print writer myself, all I can say is I use all the media I can get,
Der Zeit and The NewYorker for instance (“effete impudent snob”,yeah) even though it keeps me up late. At my age I need my kip.

Email, Net, Internet radio, Blogs, IQ, etcetera …. yummy.

Relax, Jonathan: Multimedia is/are safe for a while yet, as is the smell of a printed page.

Of course the Schwartz blog (a goodie) was heading slowly and steadily towards a none-too-suble reprize of the virtues of open source media; to wit, Sun Systems’ product X.

That’s corporate blogging for you.
But I subscribe to this one of Sun’s because, although I don’t know an alpha from a beta or a bit from a byte, I want to know what people are saying and am about to start saying just a wee bit myself, as and when the urge strikes.

I read such a Blog because maybe some future new-clients of mine will get the idea into their wee heads that I too, am “cool.”…. That would be BONZER!)

AND after ALL : COOL…(Like Greed) IS GOOD!

Now, to learn how to shape this blog: how to insert pix, caps indents colours etc
Have no idea. Second blog ever.

Best to you reader..

Lonewordsmith
Germany
email:info@professionalword.com

Johnathan Schwartz’ Blog, which I recommend as an example of corporate blogging (along with Debbie Weiss and others) is at http://www.sunmicrosystems@sun.chtah.com Enjoy …and “Getoutathhway, dopey!

My new site should be up by Friday of next week. It is an online resource centre about innovation – for Business Communication writers and other creatives; based on my thirty-plus years in that sort of business. http//:www.professionalword.com