This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
Well, I've been having such a wonderful time on Book Tour over the past month, been all across North America, a few more stops to go, and then we'll see what happens after that. But it's just been so fun to connect with readers, listeners, all kinds of amazing people. And today we actually have a question about Book Tour as it relates to the world of side hustling. Are book tours profitable for authors? I love this question.
I'm always happy to share anything about my business or anything that I have learned along the way for our aspiring authors, for anybody who's just curious. So today from Nashville, we've got a writer who hopes to publish a novel in the next couple of years, and she wants to do a book tour. Cool. Sounds great. Sounds good to me.
So she's curious about the ins and outs of touring as an author. Is it about the profit? Is it about the exposure? Is it a bit of both? Is it something else?
Fair question. As I said, I'm always happy to share. So her name is Harper. Let's unpack it. Are book tours profitable for authors?
Maybe it's more of a yes and or a no and. Okay. Okay. As I said, I will unpack it. Quick shout out to our sponsor.
I'll answer that question and then my answer. Greetings from Nashville. My name is Harper. I'm signed up for your book tour stop, and I'm hoping to catch you there. In the meantime, here's my question.
I'm a writer who hopes to publish a novel in the next two years. I've always dreamed of doing my own tour across various cities, meeting readers, and signing copies, but I've heard mixed opinions about them. What are the economics of a book tour? Is it genuinely profitable for authors or is it more for exposure? I'd love to know your experience and any advice.
Harper, I'm wishing you the best with your novel and your potential tour. As for the economics of book tour, it's like this. I'm not doing the book tour to make money, for sure. It is actually much more of an expense than an income generator. Authors, at least traditionally published authors, earn between one and three dollars on royalties for any book that's sold.
If you just think about the number of people who might come to a book event, a lot of them might already have the book. They might have it in audio form or digital form. If you're not charging a ticket price for your events, which I usually don't, at least on book tour, I want to keep it accessible, definitely not a profit center. In the short term, if you're looking at it from a short-term perspective, a strict ROI, economic ROI, not worth it. Now, of course, I'm looking at it a little bit differently.
I've been doing book tour ever since I had my first book out. I've done probably 400 or more events around the world. For me, I think about it in terms of community. Community, relationships, long-term building, I'm not just thinking about selling one book. I'm thinking about people who will hopefully be with me for a long time in different ways and such.
For me, one of the reasons why I started writing and connecting online was because I realized there were just a lot of awesome people out there. Perhaps there was something I could serve them with in some way, and that was really fun. Of course, you want your projects to be profitable, but there's lots of different ways that things can be rewarding. Here on Side Hustle School, of course, we're always talking about money-making projects, but I'm the first to say not everything in life has to make money. At least not directly or even indirectly.
I think the coolest thing about being an author is that you can create this whole hybrid approach where you do a lot of your work for free, but if you create the right products or services like the podcast, for example, that's advertiser supported, or if you're making a lot of online courses, then obviously you can do well financially there. In terms of direct economic benefit, the book tour, that's not what it's about. In terms of long-term relationship benefit, that's what it's definitely about. That's why I'm happy to do it, and your perspective on that just determines whether it's a good thing for you or not. I definitely know a lot of authors that are like, "I would hate the idea of going on book tour and it doesn't make financial sense," and I'm like, "That's great.
That's fine for you. I do this because I enjoy it and find it meaningful." There you go, Harper. Most importantly, write a great book. That's probably the best thing you can do. Write a great book, and think about those people that you want to reach as readers of your book.
Okay, you know all this. I won't go into that. I'm just here to say, "Good luck. Best wishes." Listeners, you have a question, sidehustleschool.com/questions, or come out to one of my book tour events. It's almost over, at least for the Gonzo Capitalism Tour, but presumably I'll be doing more in the future, chrisguillebeau.com/tour, or on social media, 193 countries on Instagram.
Okay, new episode coming out tomorrow. My name is Chris Guillebeau. You're listening to Side Hustle School. From The Onward Project.
