When you publish a book, you’re supposed to go on a book tour to promote it. Everybody knows that. You schedule appearances on the major late-night talk shows and publish reviews in the Times and the Post. You can also set up “events” around the country people can flock to as you sell and sign.

My nonfiction title came out October 1. Publish your Novel Online for Under $500: A Step-by-step Guide for Writers. (On Amazon for Kindle or in Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07VYLVVTT.)

Essentially, the book is the notes I kept during the long, involved process of publishing several sci-fi novels online. Publishing online is easier than getting published by Random House, but it does present some hurdles. I hurdled those hurdles, and this guide is my record of how I did it. It’s designed as encouragement for other writers, as well as containing, as promised, the step-by-step DIY process.

A how-to book did not sit comfortably among my other recent publications, all sci-fi novels (or “psi-fi” as I call it: psychological science-fiction). Should I just put the new nonfiction book on the list along with the novels (at www.psifibooks.com)? And more importantly, how would I promote the new book? It was an odd duck.

I decided on a book tour. I did not get bookings with Jimmy Fallon or Stephen Colbert. Instead, I lined up a series of free talks with the Pima County Library system. I go to one of the many branches around Tucson and give a 90-minute talk on the subject of the book, waving a paperback copy to prove it is real. Often, these talks are at two o’clock on a Sunday afternoon and filled with white-haired attendees hoping to publish a memoir for their grandchildren (not that there’s anything wrong with that. Or with white hair, either.)

Actually, these talks are a lot of fun. The questions are interesting and revealing. And the audience usually includes a sprinkling of starry-eyed younger writers (not that there’s anything wrong with starry eyes). I can’t sell books in the library, of course, but that’s not a problem. As I explain in the book, I don’t recommend hand-selling at all, anywhere, ever. If you want my books, go to Amazon (or Smashwords.com).

I have two stops left on my fabulous book tour, which has been going on since August. (That was a mistake. Nobody wants to hear about a pre-release book). If you want to attend, I give my last library talk on Sunday, October 20th at the Kirk-Bear Canyon library in Tucson at 2pm. Doors open at 1:30! Meet the author! Then I give the talk at the Arizona Mystery Writers in January (Saturday, the 11th, after the lunch. www.arizonamysterywriters.com. Great lunch! Don’t miss the lunch!).

Besides the basics of how to get your novel uploaded for sale, I also cover (a little bit of) marketing and sales. My Fabulous Book Tour is marketing. So how’s that going?  Does this “tour” have any effect at all, on anyone? Does it increase book sales? To those questions I answer a resounding “Maybe!” But it’s part of the writing process. It’s what writers do. You cannot be a proper writer if you do not have readers. To get readers, you have to beat the bushes. Libraries are metaphorical bushes (they have branches).