jealous of jetpacks

Periodically, I get the question: “Why don’t you come to my area and do a book signing?”

Look, I love book signings. Love, love, love. Interacting with readers is one of the best parts of my job. And I love bookstores. They’re my happy place. 

But I also love paying my mortgage. 

Let’s look at how much a bookstore event costs me–at the bare minimum. 

For simplicity’s sake, I’m going to say that I make about $1/book. That’s not exactly true, but after fees and taxes, it’s pretty damn close.

If the event is within driving distance, I pay:

• $40 for a tank of gas
• A day’s worth of writing

I’m not going to put a monetary value on the day’s worth of writing when I’m doing an event to sell books–part of my job is selling books. But the cost of a day’s worth of writing is why I have to put a monetary value on events where I can’t sell books (such as school visits, teaching workshops, etc.).

So, that means, to make any profit at all, I would need to sell 41 copies of my book at this event. 

On average, I sell about ten to twenty books at an event within driving distance–which means I lose about twice as much as I make when I do a bookstore event.

If the event is further away, I pay:

• All travel costs. On average, I usually pay around $250 for an airline ticket, then an additional $50 or so for cabs or rental cars to get where I need to go, so, about $300.
• Hotel costs. I usually need to stay two nights for an event because of the timing–so, another $300.
• Food. I have to budget in going out to eat at these events, so there goes another $100.
• 3-5 days worth of writing. Travel stresses me out, and I can’t write for about a day before and day after travel, and have a hard time writing during travel.

I’m grossly averaging here, but a typical event outside of my home state is going to cost me around $700 or so. I have done events that cost this much. I have done some that cost more than this. 

And this is what most people don’t realize: I PAY FOR THIS MYSELF.

Yes, I’ve been on publisher-sponsored book tours. The Breathless Reads book tours were not paid for by me. But every single one of my book events outside of those tours was. I’ve done about twenty events sponsored by my publisher or through grants. I’ve done more than a hundred events that I paid for myself. 

Breaking down the costs, this means that a typical out-of-state event will cost me about $700. I need to make about 701 sales in order to pay for the costs of the event. 

Typically, at out-of-state events, I sell about 50 books. For every out-of-state event that I do, I do it with the knowledge that, more than likely, I will be losing hundreds of dollars. 

So why do it? Because I love it. I love readers. I love bookstores. I do this instead of taking vacations. I build bookstore events into trips where I am on vacation. I love it. 

But I also love paying my mortgage. 

So part of the reason why I do events is hope. Hope that the people who come to the event and don’t buy my book will have liked me and my words enough to go out and buy it later. Hope that the people who came tell others, and they buy the book. Hope that the bookstores like me and help handsell the book. 

And just hope that more people read. 

Please understand: I wish I could come to your local bookstore. I really do. I love it. 

I just can’t always afford it.