Changes in Tour-Land
This story originally appeared in Children's Bookshelf on Nov. 10, 2005 Sign up now!
by Sally Lodge, Children's Bookshelf -- Publishers Weekly, 11/10/2005
When it comes to putting together tours to promote children's books, there are surely changes in the air—and on the road. Recently, publishers have demonstrated impressive creativity in refiguring the traditional author tour, trying to reach kids and teens in new ways.
Rather than hooking up with readers in the bookstore, school or library, authors are now reaching out to fans in other places they're likely to be. This past summer, Simon & Schuster and Houghton Mifflin each sent two authors to sleep-away camp to talk up their books, a move intended to reap exposure rather than sales. Megan Butler, a freelance publicist for Houghton Mifflin, reported that collaborators Lauren Mechling and Laura Moser (The Rise and Fall of a 10th-Grade Social Climber) discovered that talking to teens in this setting "made for much more open discussions. They were also able to reach a geographically diverse audience who will go home to their various states and spread that oh-so-important word-of-mouth."
Taking another inventive promotional tack, Random House decided to jumpstart the buzz for Libba Bray's Rebel Angels in September by scheduling visits to girls' boarding schools in five cities, since this venue plays a significant role in this Delacorte novel as well as Bray's earlier A Great and Terrible Beauty. "We thought it would be fun for Libba to visit the same type of school featured in her books to promote them, and sending her directly into boarding schools guarantees us the ability to reach her target age group and really spread the word about her and her books," says publicity manager Kathy Dunn. Also growing in popularity is the group author tour, which entails publishers touring together authors writing books with like themes or books aimed at a similar audience. S&S had success with such a tour in 2003, when it sent three authors of new middle-grade novels with female protagonists on tour together: Rachel Cohn (The Steps), Frances O'Roark Dowell (Where I'd Like to Be) and D. Anne Love (The Puppeteer's Apprentice).Tracy van Straaten, v-p and executive director of publicity of Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing, notes that booksellers were very enthusiastic about hosting what shaped up to be "a traveling writing panel" and that "all three authors had good sales across the board." This fall, S&S has sent James Howe (Totally Joe) and Alex Sanchez (Rainbow Road) out together to seven markets, since both novels share a gay theme, though Howe's book is aimed at a younger audience. And this publisher has teamed up with Candlewick to send paper engineering mavericks Robert Sabuda and Matthew Reinhart on the road together to promote a trio of new books: their joint pop-up, Encyclopedia Prehistorica: Dinosaurs (Candlewick), and two Little Simon titles—Sabuda's Winter's Tale: An Original Pop-Up Journey and Reinhart's Cinderella: A Pop-Up Fairy Tale.
An ambitious multiple author tour is in the works at Random House, which will launch its Teen Voices Author Tour in the spring, sending five authors of new YA novels to five West Coast cities and four to five East Coast cities. Dunn explains that the intention of the tour is "to provide a unique experience for teenagers, booksellers and educators to hear together a number of young adult voices that reflect both the range and variety of this genre."
The Art of Touring Sans Author
Even with these variations on the standard author tour, publicists and authors can still be haunted by the nightmarish scenarios that a tour triggers: weather-delayed flights, gridlock traffic, noisy hotel rooms and sparse attendance at book signings. One increasingly popular solution: leave the author at home. Instead, send out enticing props, giveaway goodies and even a person or character instead of the author, creating an authorless tour.
A number of innovative twists on this theme have received rave reviews from booksellers and their customers. Two recent popular touring phenomena are, well, cleverly truncated versions of an author tour: they revolve around traveling trunks. Last fall S&S debuted its Olivia Dress-Up Trunk, created in conjunction with Columbus, Ohio-based Costume Specialists (which coordinates the trunk's schedule) and Ian Falconer, author of the bestselling picture books starring this irrepressible piglet.
Contents of the trunk include child-sized costumes worn by Olivia in her books, as well as her accessories: top hats, wands, boas, tiaras, purses, soccer balls, reproducible activities and paper sunglasses that young fans can take home. "We wanted stores to be able to host an event with more elements than a traditional event kit could provide, so we created an interactive experience," says Michelle Montague, director of trade marketing for S&S Children's Publishing.
Square Books Jr. in Oxford, Miss., was among the stops on the Olivia trunk tour this summer. Manager and children's book buyer Lauren Lanza billed her store's event as an Olivia dress-up tea party, complete with miniature teacups filled with apple juice and a mirror and Polaroid camera so that the youngsters could see what they looked like dressed up as this heroine.
Lanza comments that since Olivia is such a beloved character (the kids attending the tea party recognized each outfit and accessory from her books), the absence of an author was not at all a drawback: "At that age, children don't care so much about the actual author. They want to do something fun, and when these little girls saw the pictures of themselves dressed in Olivia's outfits, their faces just lit up. I'd definitely hold an event like this again."
Currently merrily chugging along the road are two bright blue, six-foot long trunks created by Random House to celebrate Thomas the Tank Engine's 60th birthday. Each trunk contains a seven-foot tall Thomas & Friends backdrop, two train engineer costumes, activities and giveaway tattoos. Booksellers are encouraged to read aloud from oversized versions of the new Thomas tale, Calling All Engines.
Last month Nicola's Books in Ann Arbor, Mich., climbed aboard the Thomas traveling trunk tour, hosting an event that drew more than 300 people to the store. "We set a world record in terms of number of strollers in the store," quipped buyer Bill Cusumano, who praised the publisher for doing a great job organizing the trunk and offering suggestions for holding an event. As with Olivia's fans, Thomas's young pals had their photos snapped alongside the colorful props (with Polaroid cameras and film provided in the trunk). Thomas's longevity and high profile definitely made this authorless event fly, Cusumano remarks: "This kind of event works if it is promoting mainstream children's books, ones that have had a long shelf life."
For the second year in a row, another character-driven, authorless tour rolled into 29 cities over eight weeks this summer, introducing a real-life version of a favorite character whose novels have more than 28 million copies in print to some 11,000 fans. Branded the Junie B. Jones Stupid Smelly Bus Tour (playing off the title of Barbara Park's first novel featuring Junie: Junie B. Jones and the Stupid Smelly Bus), this Random House promotion had a bright pink school bus deliver two actors—representing Junie and her bus driver, Mr. Woo—to bookstores.
"We knew that there were millions of Junie fans across the country, more than Barbara Park could ever reach on her own," says Dunn at Random House. "And since much of the appeal of this book property is the character, focusing on the character rather than the author works to our advantage. When we thought about ways we can continue to build the series with limited author participation, we came up with the idea of a traveling bus tour, tying into our 'June Is Junie Month' promotion and bringing her antics to life via a theatrical performance with a script written by Barbara Park."
Among the stores on the bus's itinerary was Harry W. Schwartz Bookshops in Milwaukee, where children's buyer Elly Gore reports that the actors gave a crowd-pleasing performance—with the young woman playing Junie perfectly capturing her personality. "I am definitely a fan of such promotional tours," Gore says. "All kids know Junie, and I think she probably drew more kids than the author would have, though of course Barbara Park is a wonderful woman."
An author's inaccessibility often drives a publicist's ingenuity. Since Rebecca Whitford and Martina Selway, author and illustrator of Little Yoga: A Toddler's First Book of Yoga, hail from England, Henry Holt Books for Young Readers came up with an authorless promotional plan neatly tailored to the book's focus. For this fall title, the publisher has created an extensive event kit that encourages booksellers to promote this book of yoga exercises by conducting yoga activities, perhaps in conjunction with a local yoga center, in lieu of a traditional story time and signing.
Another activity-based promotion will roll out in late November to coincide with the release of the Columbia Pictures/Sony movie version of Zathura, Chris Van Allsburg's 2002 picture book, in which the brothers from Jumanji experience an adventure through space and time. Since the author went on a 16-city tour when the film version of The Polar Express opened in theaters last fall, he was reluctant to hit the road again for the new film. So Houghton Mifflin partnered with Mad Science, a Montreal-based group with franchises throughout the U.S., to create a 45-minute, interactive science program that a "Mad Scientist" will present at stores, schools and libraries throughout the country. The publisher, which according to Megan Butler, has "six movie tie-in books and the classic Zathura on bookstore shelves in big numbers," also collaborated with NASA to devise curriculum materials based on the science concepts revealed in Zathura. These lesson plans are printed on a six-panel poster that also promotes the film, and is available to booksellers to distribute.
Among the stores gearing up to host the Mad Scientist is BookKids, part of BookPeople in Austin, Tex. Amarin Enyart, the store's events and marketing coordinator, has invited local schools and the public to attend and expects a sizable crowd, even without Van Allburg's presence: "Of course having an author appear has appeal to kids, but I don't think they are disappointed not to have the author attend an event, as long as the program is fun, and the book is special. And they definitely both are."
Though publishers agree that the likes of traveling trunks, actors posing as book characters and professional performers are not likely to edge out the tried-and-true author tour, they obviously have embraced the notion of authorless tours as an affordable, efficient and kid-pleasing alternative. Discussing the Thomas Traveling Trunk Tour, Random House's executive director of publicity Judith Haut succinctly captures what might be the prime advantage of these faceless, potentially face-saving tours: "The beauty of this tour is that we can give kids a fun, interactive, book-based Thomas experience without sacrificing an author's time and energy on a lengthy tour. Every publicist's and author's worst nightmare is a poorly attended event, and with the authorless tour you have an added benefit: the blue trunk won't feel bad if no one shows up at 'his' event." For all involved, that is clearly a big plus.
