In today’s Shelf Awareness touring author Michael Perry hits upon key reasons for scheduling author events:

The reading is primarily a peg upon which to hang radio interviews, newspaper pieces, face-to-face interaction with booksellers, rotation of the book to more desirable shelf space, and that nice little two-week sales bounce commonly seen in the wake of a reading. Of course, the more people at a reading, the merrier …

UIP author Lincoln Beauchamp’s recent appearance at the 2010 Printers Row Lit Fest offered no obvious media attention at the point of booking, but the activity ended up generating quotes in the Chicago Tribune, Newsweek.com, and The New York Times. Now we’ll try to use the coverage to schedule more author events. And so on.