For years, the house-party concept has been used to sell products, especially in the network marketing industry. Think about Amway/Quixstar, Avon, and other household names. and think about Tupperware, which probably did the most to popularize the model–so much so that the phrase “Tupperware party” came into the language.

In a recent newsletter, Steve Harrison of Radio TV Interview Report/Free Publicity offered a few examples of authors who have done very well with house parties. One of them, Kelly Corrigan, a big-publisher author (Hyperion), actually did a traveling house-party book tour covering over 30 events up and down the Northeast, using her wide network of personal connections to get people in a living room to hear her read and buy books.

The result? #15 on the New York Times Best Seller List. Is that cool, or what?

Personally, I’ve done a house party as a book launch (and got over 50 people to my friend’s loft in Brooklyn for the New York launch event), but never tried to do a house-party tour. Maybe when book #8 comes out, I’ll try it, in addition to bookstore events.

Book parties can provide a big advantage for lesser-known authors who may not easily attract a crowd in public venue such as a bookstore or library. By getting your friends to invite their friends, and providing them with the chance to meet a real author at close range, you can have a very successful event.

Anybody out there try this? Tell us what happened.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 27th, 2008 at 3:09 pm and is filed under Book Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.