Days remaining to publication date – 29.

The Happiness Project is an account of the year I spent testing the wisdom of the ages, the current scientific studies, and the lessons from popular culture about how to be happier. This is my fourth book (or my fifth book, if you include a book I did in collaboration with an artist).

The big news for me this week is that my book tour schedule has been finalized. I’ll be going to Washington D.C., Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Kansas City (my hometown), Denver, Seattle, Chicago, and of course, New York City – where I live now. (Details about dates and location are here.) I’ve never done a book tour before, so I’m very interested in seeing how it will go.

I feel extremely fortunate to be doing a book tour – yet at the same time, I know that conventional wisdom holds that book tours don’t really work anymore, because they absorb a lot of money and energy without doing much to spark interest in a book. So we'll see how it unfolds. I hope I’ll be able to use my blog, Facebook, and Twitter – not to mention my friends – to let people know I'll be coming to their cities. Will social media really help?

Recently, a friend of mine did a book tour and had terrific crowds everywhere – except one city, where not one person showed up. Of course, zero people is better than three people, because you can just turn around and walk out. As you can imagine, this story got me very motivated to spread the word about the book tour. Please help!

If you live in one of these cities, it would be great to meet in person, so come if you can – and if you know anyone in another city who might be interested, please pass them the information. And what do you think? Do you have any insights into whether book touring is useful, or how to make it more useful? Do you often go to book events in your city?