Notes From a Book Tour

By Anne Mitchell Whisnant

"I thought I'd read a few passages from my book," I told the young man, as he arranged the chairs, tested the mike, and set out a bottle of water before my first book-signing event at a small bookstore in the North Carolina mountains.

A surprised look crossed his face. "I guess that would be OK," he replied earnestly, "but usually only our fiction writers read from their books."

A few weeks earlier, I had spent an evening with 45 such writers at an independent booksellers' convention in Florida's Gaylord Palms Resort, an enormous air-conditioned indoor paradise (complete with alligators and a faux Everglades). The plan was for me to talk with bookstore owners in a literary speed-dating event where, like a hopeful single, I would move from table to table when a bell rang.

I was one of only two nonfiction writers there; the other had written a book on Florida wildlife. My book, Super-Scenic Motorway: A Blue Ridge Parkway History (University of North Carolina Press, 2006) is a serious study that had its beginnings as a dissertation called "Parkway Politics: Class, Culture, and Tourism in the Blue Ridge."

Since earning my Ph.D. in 1997, I had become interested in "public history" -- history that is engaged with public audiences or with current public and policy issues. My dissertation topic fit that niche nicely since the Blue Ridge Parkway has long been the most-visited site in the U.S. National Park system. In turning my research into a book, I consciously sought to expand its intended audience and shape my writing to address not only scholars and policy makers but also Blue Ridge Parkway enthusiasts.

By publication time, I had a "crossover" academic book. It retained the scholarly apparatus of documentation, engagement with relevant literatures, and theoretical framing, yet also told riveting stories, developed colorful characters, and sought to inspire greater public concern for the parkway's future. A reviewer called it "stylishly written," and I hope that is true. In any case, I tried to craft a clear narrative infused with the passion I have for the parkway, its history, and its future.

Fortunately, my publisher adopted a trade-book marketing strategy designed to publicize the book more widely than would be normal for an academic work. It appeared first as a beautifully designed hardcover sold to wholesalers at a steep discount and backed by an aggressive promotion plan that pitched review copies far and wide (no, I didn't make The New York Times, but not for lack of trying), arranged interviews on six regional radio programs, and launched me on a 35-event book tour.

That is how I ended up at the mountain bookstore and the booksellers' convention. Accustomed to academic settings, I was a bit bewildered by the world of big-time publishing, where prolific authors churn out book after book in short order, advances run into the millions, and marketing budgets exceed six figures.

At dinner before the booksellers' event, an older woman author chirped incessantly about her agent and her difficulties with her current publisher. Across the table, a thirtysomething woman carried on in an exaggerated Southern drawl about her book of humorous essays on Southern womanhood at midlife, which she had written as a lark before friends urged her to seek publication. And to my right, a male writer of detective books added, "Yeah, I have a contract to turn out a book a year."

"And how long did you work on your book?" my companions asked, not anticipating the "15 years" I answered.

I was similarly unprepared for the convention's book exhibit, which I had approached as I do the ones at academic conferences: browsing, but resisting the urge to buy too much. Yet other people pouring out of the exhibit hall lugged heavy bags of books. Forty-five minutes before my airport shuttle, I realized that the publishers were giving those books away! I grabbed everything I could, including an advance review copy of the new Artemis Fowl book (a thrilling catch for my 9-year-old son), the dust jacket of which detailed the publisher's $250,000 marketing plan.

By the time of my first bookstore appearance in the North Carolina mountains, I was beginning to catch on. Copying novelist Lee Smith, one of whose local signings I had recently attended, I decided to read from my book. After all, shouldn't 15 years of work produce prose that would be pleasing to hear?

I have, by now, developed what I think is an effective and engaging talk in which I read a number of vivid, story-oriented passages linked by short extemporaneous elaborations on my findings. Sometimes, I add a PowerPoint show (pictures only, no bulleted lists). Judging from the insightful and perceptive questions I have received, I think my approach is working. "Friends of the library" in small towns are some of the most inquisitive and engaged listeners an author could ever want.

My big break came when my publisher arranged an interview with an Associated Press reporter in Charlotte, N.C. A feature story on the book ran in the fall-travel release on the national news wire and was picked up by newspapers all around the country and on Web sites like Yahoo.com and CNN.com. The Associated Press also produced a podcast focused on the book.

All of that was, of course, a huge ego rush. As the book went into a second hardback printing, I obsessively checked my Amazon sales rank. For a brief time, I had the 3,015th top-selling book in America! Throughout the subsequent holidays, my rank hovered between 10,000 and 50,000 before settling down now to a more humble position between 250,000 and 400,000.

Ah well, 15 minutes isn't a long time, and in publishing, one's "shelf life" can be rather short. In fact, before my first scholarly review appeared in any journal, I realized that (in a marketing sense) my book was already last season's news.

But, still, some of the buyers are reading, and one of the best parts of that has been the fan mail. "Have had my eyes opened so wide about matters," one acquaintance wrote. The grandson of a prominent character in my story said that "your writing is excellent. I'd give you a Pulitzer Prize." He then invited me to speak to a local conservative think tank -- not my usual crowd, to be sure, but a generous and welcoming audience nonetheless.

Such letters and experiences remind me that the past is not really gone and that, scholarly theorizing aside, the people in it were real. I've met someone whose grandfather sold the land for a resort on the parkway that I wrote a chapter about, and I met a son of the man whose road-construction business built the first parkway section in 1935. I've stayed in the home of the grandson of the former owner of a tourist hotel at the Peaks of Otter, in Virginia (the subject of another chapter), whose wife invited me to speak to the local historical society. And last fall, my husband and I visited with the daughter of the highway engineer who located the parkway route. She has become one of my biggest advocates.

All in all, crossing over has been rewarding and fun. It would have been awful to write for 15 years and then have the book simply disappear into a library, rarely to be read, as not a few academic books do.

Still, the path has had its bumps, like several mortifying bookstore events in which I was parked at a table simply to sign books. While that technique may work for Oprah or Jimmy Carter, people have not lined up just to watch me sign my name.

Even worse was when I was paired with authors of other parkway-related books that were different from mine in theme, approach, and style. Explaining that my book focuses on the "complex politics of land use" seemed out of place when I was sitting next to the author of a parkway travel guide, or a book of watercolor paintings of mountain scenes. Most people's eyes glazed over and they edged away.

And while I connected well with many of my audiences, other people who expected a coffee-table book packed with color photos just didn't "get" what I had tried to do. A longtime (nonacademic) friend e-mailed that she hadn't gotten far in her reading. "This is heavy stuff," she wrote. "I like it," another friend remarked, "but it needs more pictures."

She might be right. The book has more than 50 illustrations, twice what my original contract called for. Still, nestled on a shelf near colorful photography books of parkway scenery, my tome might have benefited from a more generous illustration budget.

Too, although I have been delighted with the attention my publisher has lavished on producing and marketing my book, after seeing its crossover appeal, a small part of me wishes I had sought a trade publisher. For an author, the economics of publishing with a university press are discouraging. My total payment for the book (advance against royalties) was $1,000. Charles Frazier, whose second novel about the same southern Appalachian region that I wrote about appeared the same fall as my book, received $8-million -- for a story he made up, based on historical events.

I feel bitter about that occasionally, and about the bookstores and magazines that have snubbed my book or might have paid attention if it had been published by Knopf. I sometimes think it may be time for me to forget my commitment to writing peer-reviewed, carefully vetted research and crank out some creative nonfiction.

Still, as my husband (also an academic) reminds me, I've already, in a bit more than a year, had more attention paid to my book than he ever got for any of the four scholarly books he has published. Mostly what I've learned is that there is a market for well-written, creative, engaging scholarship, and I would encourage you to cross over with your work if you can. It's been a great trip.