SHE WROTE: Book Tours, An Explanation

You know, nobody ever gets the book tour thing until they’ve done one. And even then, I remember Willard whatshischops, the weatherman, once saying that he didn’t understand why authors whined about book tours because he’d loved his. I wanted to say, “Yeah, but you didn’t want to be a writer first, you wanted to be on TV, of COURSE you loved your book tour.” Writers generally do not become writers to meet people. They become writers so they can sit in their underwear and make up stuff. You can’t punish a writer by putting her in solitary confinement unless you take away her laptop, too. And then she’ll write on the walls in lipstick. Or blood.

Big rooms full of strangers who expect you to be interesting and charming in person? ARGH.

My first tour was grueling. My second tour I had the publicist from hell (now long gone, thank God) who didn't plan for time that I could sleep or eat. I’d do a booksigning at seven, get done by nine-thirty, take a cab to the airport, catch a midnight flight, get into a city by two or three in the morning, make it to the hotel by three or four, and have to be at a TV station by six to do Good Morning Whatever The Hell Town This Is, then find the radio station and do drive time radio with two arrested development guys who would read the sex scene out loud (they always read the sex scene out loud), get to my hotel where the publicist would not have scheduled an early check-in because she was trying to save money, sit in the lobby until the escort came to do stock signings, try to work in some kind of food along the way (escorts are wonderful about getting you whatever you need but they can’t sleep for you), do whatever other interviews were scheduled and as many stock signings as possible, get to the bookstore by six so I could reassure the bookseller that I was indeed there and answer any questions she or he had, get up in front of people at seven and do The Jenny Show which did not include being tired or hungry or in the downswing of hypomania, be polite to everybody no matter what they say or ask (“I didn’t like your last book, you pretty much phoned that one in,” “I just skip your sex scenes, why do you write those anyway?,” and this year, no doubt, “So you two sleeping together?”) because if I slipped just once, if I just once lost that smile or said the wrong thing, that one reader would tell everyone in the damn universe that Jenny Crusie was a bitch and was rude to her, then thank the readers for coming because I meant it and thank the bookstore people for having me because I meant it, the people are the reason I was doing it, go to the airport, catch the midnight flight out, check into my hotel and do it all over again. One night, the publicist got me a nice cut-rate place that was a smoking room (they didn’t have non-smoking rooms) next to an indoor chlorine pool, and I’m asthmatic. I spent the next five hours sitting rigid on my bed sucking on my inhaler until the escort arrived and got me out of there. I did that for two weeks and then I broke. screaming and weeping in a hotel room on the phone with my editor who offered to pull me off the road because she’d had no idea what was happening. But I couldn’t stop, I’d promised bookstores, they’d advertised for me—in fact, what pushed me over the edge was missing a signing in a mystery bookstore in Omaha, something I still feel guilt about to this day, because I was so overloaded I’d missed it on the schedule—so there was nothing to do but keep going. I got home and my doctor put me on anti-depressants for the first and only time in my life because I was so crazed. After that, I didn’t tour for a long while because the thought of it made me panic. Gradually, I got back into it because it’s necessary if you want your book make any kind of noise. And now we’re doing what the head of publicity at SMP says is the biggest tour in St. Martin’s history.

The good news is, my present publicist does not do any of these things. John the Fabulous makes sure that hotels are lovely and there’s twenty-four hour room service wherever I go so that even if there’s no time to eat during the day, I can at least get hot food that has some nutritional value when I get to the hotel, even if it’s in the middle of the night. He’s planned this one so we only have nine flights and can drive the rest of the places, which is a huge, huge help. He’s gotten us escorts in every city (escorts are the angels of the book tour) so we won’t be driving around trying to find things right before we get up in front of people and do The Bob and Jenny Show which requires immense amounts of energy. He stays on call at all times. (There was one time in Chicago where the hotel lied to him and said they had twenty-four hour room service when they didn't. I hadn't eaten all day when I got to the hotel, it was in the middle of an industrial park so no restaurants, and I was too frazzled to think of calling a cab and saying, "Take me to the nearest good restaurant that has take-out." So I called John instead and shrieked. John apologized all over the place (even though it wasn't his fault) and then offered to come to Chicago and personally get me a cheeseburger. This is a good, good man.)

But there's nothing John the Fabulous can do about the fact that I wasn't designed for booksignings. Somewhere, some time, someone programmed me to take care of the world, control it and make sure that everybody in it is happy. So I’m driven to make sure the bookseller is happy and gets whatever she needs, so when there’s a signing and nobody shows up—it happens to everybody, it’s part of the business—I have to make sure the bookseller knows that it’s not her fault (because it probably isn’t), that I don’t care that nobody showed up (because at that point I’m so worried about her that I don’t), that New York won’t hate her (they won’t, they know how this stuff goes), and that she hasn’t failed. I have to make sure that I talk to every reader who does show because, frankly, I love them: they’re happy, they’re fun, they have my sense of humor, they read my books, and they left their homes at night to come see me, so I have to deliver. I owe them. Plus some of them buy and read my book. I REALLY owe them. That’s the great part about booksignings and tours, but it’s also the part that sucks your energy. I read someplace once that any one-on-one encounter with another human being is stressful even if it’s a good one. Put that encounter in a situation where you’re already disoriented (what town is this?), tired, hungry, probably hopped up on sugar and caffeine, and completely out of your element (which is alone in your house making stuff up in your underwear), and add to it the fact that one bad encounter reverberates forever and is told over and over again, probably on the internet, multiply it times thirty or however many people show up for the signing, and you have me vibrating in a hotel room and Bob standing in the doorway of the plane.

So why do we do it? We have to. Writers have no job security. There is no guarantee that you’ll ever sell another book, but it’s pretty much a sure thing if your book tanks that you won’t sell another one. If you’re taking a risk and doing something that is as historically unpopular as collaborations are, you’re really in the kill zone. Plus we owe it to people to get our asses out there and tap dance; it’s the least we can do for readers. And the truth is, we do love doing The Bob and Jenny Show, there’s a real manic high to that although we never know what we’ve said or done afterward because we’re always on that performance rush. I always look at Bob afterward and say, “Did we suck?” and he always shrugs and says, “I have no idea. There was a woman in the back frowning, though.” And I think, “Oh, God, how did I miss that woman? What did she need that she didn’t get? Where did we let her down?” And she was probably wondering where her teenager was or trying to digest her dinner.

And while all that is going on, we’re writing Agnes, Bob is writing Chasing the Ghost, I’m writing The Unfortunate Miss Fortunes with Krissie and Eileen and the proposal for my next solo book which was due two years ago. Plus I have to stop once a month and lose a pint of blood so I don’t stroke out, a condition that’s worsened by airplane flights which has also led my doctor to point out that if I’d like to live to see sixty, I need to lose forty pounds ASAP. Like in the next five weeks on tour when I won’t be able to exercise and my food choices are going to be limited and random. And of course, Bob and I fight because we are polar opposites and what makes me insane he sees as no big deal, and what makes him insane I see as business as usual. We’re trying to do better by each other, but our differences run really deep and about the best we can do is declare a truce and treat each other with as much kindness as we can muster up because we really do like and respect each other. It’s just that each of us would be so happy if the other one would just CHANGE . . .

Yeah, I know that’s depressing. But the deal was, we’d tell the truth on this blog, not be shiny happy people all the time. We’re planning on posting every day on the tour, and there’ll be lots of good stuff because we do like meeting readers, that’s not blowing smoke, especially you guys because we feel like we know you and you definitely know us from reading this blog, that’s like meeting old friends. But even then . . . my worst experience with the reader thing was meeting this very nice woman who said, “We just don’t see enough of you,” and I was so tired and I thought, “I know this woman, who is she?” and I smiled and said, “You're right, we don’t see enough of each other.” Five minutes later I remembered who she was: my aunt. A lovely woman once gave me her book to sign and I smiled and said, “Who should I make this out to?” and she said, “Susan, your college roommate,” and I’d just seen her six months before, Susie and I keep in touch. I would have recognized her in Cleveland, but this was Columbus. I think I would have recognized her in Cleveland. I think we were in Columbus.

But this tour is going to be different, I swear. For one thing, I’m not alone out there; I’ve got Bob to draw fire, not to mention Moot. If things work according to plan, nobody will even notice I’m there; they’ll all be concentrating on Bob and Moot. And nothing bothers Moot. For another, we’re driving a lot of it so I won’t be stranded in airports living on chocolate-covered raisins from The Grove and listening to “Flight 627 has been further delayed.” For another, The Bob and Jenny Show is infinitely easier than The Jenny Show because it’s more interesting and there’s actually something to talk about besides “This is my newest book,” and it’s fun. It really is fun, whatever else a tour is, riffing off Bob is fun. And this time we built the tour around several conferences so I get to meet old friends and there will actually be hours in there where I can go to a hotel room and stop smiling (after awhile, you start to feel like the Joker) and sleep. And this time there are the people who read this blog, you guys, who are in the know and who will glare at anybody who asks what's with the plastic alligator or if we're sleeping together, so we're not so alone out there. I think this blog helps in general, too, because we blow off steam here instead of bottling everything up. It kind of puts things in perspective to talk about the day here. And we'll be doing it every day on the tour unless things get so bad neither one of us can type without screaming. That, we'll spare you.

So now, like Bob, I’m standing in the doorway of the plane. Today was a rough day, lots of stuff to handle, lots of people needing a piece of both of us. It’s going to get worse. But it’s worth it because Don’t Look Down is a good book and it’s worth it because the readers are worth it, especially all of you here who are taking this trip with us, it’s worth it, even if Bob has now stopped referring to himself in the third person and switched to calling him self “Master Po” and me “grasshopper” (and then his last e-mail to me said, "I am Spartacus," so you know where his mind is: gone), and I had to take a Valium to get through the day, it’s definitely worth it.

But expect more whining. Hey, you wanted the truth, here it is.