I decided to try something I hoped would be less lonely. Before my book came out, I had set up a lending library allowing anyone to receive a free review copy on the condition they forward it within a week to the next reader, at their own expense. (Now that a majority of reviews are appearing on blogs and in Facebook notes, everyone is a reviewer.) I asked if people wanted to hold an event in their homes. They had to promise 20 attendees. I would sleep on their couch. My publisher would pay for some of the airfare, and I would fund the rest by selling the books myself."

     Ah, book tours. Elliott's comparisong of standard with non-standard tours is captures it all too well. You should check his essay out.  I've done two standard tours and let me tell you - they may sound glamorous but they're not. They're exhausting and for months you get to say all the same things and answer all the same questions from about 6 am ("Good morning, Cincinatti.") to about 10pm when you finish a grueling day with a book talk at a big Borders or Barnes and Nobles. Bites the big one. Which is good. It means your book is doing well. But, given the current state of big publishing, no one knows what's going on, not even folks like Susan Orlean.  

    It's very likely that the standard book tour, the standard publisher-editor-writer-product-reader relationship is going the way of the do-do.

     Saddest of all, I know I've used the wrong verb tense.