Why I loathe book tours

 Robert Reich - I’m in New York today, peddling my new book. It’s officially out today.  

I loathe book tours.

The first book tour I ever went on, in the early 1980s, brought me to a bookstore in Madison, Wisconsin, where they sat me in the window under a spotlight next to a sign “Come In and Have Your Book Signed By Robert Reich.”

No one came in. For two hours, people passed on the street, a few gazing at the pathetic author in the window. I felt like a piece of merchandise, which I was.

That’s what you are when you go on a book tour: merchandise. A traveling salesperson selling a book. But not just any book — it’s your book. It’s something you’ve worked on and sweated over for several years. It’s your baby. And now you have to flog it like a can of dog food.

Even worse if it’s autobiographical, like the one I’m selling now. It’s not just your baby, but it’s you — all of you, naked and vulnerable. What happens if no one — or just a few souls — shows up at the bookstore or at the place where you’re talking about it? ...

And as much as I love and admire the young people I work with, I doubt they buy books. I’m not sure they even read books. I think I’ll give them free copies of this one and then subject them to an exam to see if they actually read it.

Okay, final complaint: I’m pushing 80, and I’m grouchy and don’t like traveling. Airports are hell. Planes are crowded. Food is shitty. Different time zones addle my brain. Sleeping in a hotel with inevitably loud air conditioning? Argh! I feel like the poet Philip Larkin, who said he’d like to visit China but only on condition he could return home that night.

If I get to your city and I seem to be in an ugly mood, don’t take it personally. I’ll still sign your book.

I’m promising myself this is my last book tour. (Of course, I made the same promise with the last book.)