Molly Weston of Meritorious Mysteries is a fantastic tour guide and hostess extraordinaire who has planned the tour I’ve taken in central North Carolina with Krista Davis, Ellery Adams (Jenn Stanley), and Avery Aames.
The grand finale was a wonderful panel discussion and signing at the Paige-Walker historic hotel in Cary. Molly has been conducting a lecture series there on Monday nights for years and has built up a great following of mystery lovers. We were fortunate enough to have them all come out and see us last night.
We’ve been in central North Carolina since Friday. Here are some of my thoughts on book touring:
It’s really nice to go with people who you get along with well. Not only does it make the time pass a lot nicer, but the folks in audiences have a lot more fun, too. Each one of the ladies I toured with has a great sense of humor. It means a lot when you’ve been to five bookstores in one day.
Calling the bookstores ahead is the best way to go, even if you’re doing a stock signing. The bookstores had all ordered more copies of our books and we went to at least 12 stores, signing stock. Frequently, the stores put our books on a special table or end-cap near the front of the store after we signed them….and they had those great “autographed copy” stickers on them.
It really helps if you’ve got a local contact in the towns who can drive up attendance at different events. We were on the front page of one of the local papers and Molly mentioned our events to her mystery reading groups. In addition, Molly offered us great advice on venues.
Schedule a few breaks. As you can tell from the photo above—you can get really tired out from all the events! :) (Or have these mystery authors been murdered in the McIntyre’s book store?)
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