David Chura, author of I Don't Wish Nobody to Have a Life Like Mine: Tales of Kids in Adult Lockup, has published a wonderful piece in the Huffington Post called "Book Peddlers: Why One Author Hits the Promotion Road." Chura talks about trudging from one book event to another in countless cities, hoping that he isn't left standing at the podium talking to himself.
Chura's story is familiar to me, and I especially appreciate Chura's feeling that, as long as he connects with his audience, his time is well spent. (It sure beats the unanswerable question I'm hearing too frequently these days from authors: "If I hire a book publicist and invest X number of dollars in book promotion, then how many dollars can I expect to earn in book sales?")
It's good to see that Chura is an example of an author who has embarked on a book promotion tour for the right reasons...gaining something besides, exclusively, book sales. But it's even better to see that, along with hitting the road to do book publicity events, Chura is also smart enough to engage in less taxing, perhaps more highly targeted book promotion efforts such as pitching a well-written, interesting article to the "Huffington Post" that gets out the word about the authorship of his book to far more people at once, far more painlessly, than a series of book events would!
