Full of new ideas

Great trip yesterday to Chester County Book Company and then on to Politics & Prose in D.C. Joe Drabyak of CCBC has given a LOT of thought to this whole bookstore tourism racket (because Larry Portzline brought a busload of booklovers to that store two years ago). Joe pointed me to the fields of Food Tourism and Adventure Tourism, as models: he thinks a multi-day approach is a major opportunity. Also, he described a fascinating on-bus author-event approach he'd thought of that would feature non-fiction-book author/presenters whose titles related thematically and regionally to the interests of riders and the locales of tours. He warned me, "God is in the details!" adjuring that I produce high quality programs.

Down at Politics & Prose, Carla Cohen and Barbara Mead were both encouraging and cautionary. They've run quite a number of tours themselves -- to Fallingwater (the Frank Lloyd Wright house), to the Hudson Valley (Roosevelt and Vanderbilt Estates), and most recently to Mexico for ten days! I learned that I should not book bus-riders into a motel just because the price seems right...and some other hazards of dealing with 50 strong-minded customers. I was delighted that Carla has already been toying with the idea of bringing a tourgroup up my way to the Pioneer Valley, where she'd like to visit the book museums here in Amherst.

I drove back this morning, between two and nine am and I am feeling pretty woozy. But I think I did have the breakthrough I was looking for, conceptually. I have realized that the marketing approach will rely on the ongoing events schedules of the participating bookstores -- so, I will issue "hot event alerts" to my newsletter subscribers, touting upcoming events at regional bookstores, and offering transit+fun to these events' cities... AND -- the branding of the programs, at their core -- the essence -- is Among Friends. People will go on these tours in order to have a good time with other people. And, I'm thinking about the slogan: "BiblioExpeditions: Carried Away!" -- to suggest the party aspect. I can use the 18 seat specially fixtured luxury buses, for instance, and run food and drink service during the travel. Here's a page describing and picturing such a bus.

We can have poetry reading, good conversation -- conviviality -- the atmosphere of a Literary Salon.

You know, it's a very funny thing: to be developing a business concept in public like this. I would say that it violates the basic principles of business, to talk about this stuff in a manner that almost INVITES pre-emption. If I hadn't had this experience in the past, I couldn't do it now. I love the whole Open Source ethic. If anyone reading this blog gets excited about anything you read here: by all means, get into this business yourself. These kinds of specially fixtured luxury- and party-buses are in use all over the country. Why shouldn't we literary types and booklovers integrate them into our marketing campaigns?

Enough for now. I hope to have some specific products/programs ready for sale in about two weeks.