Book tours on the endangered species list?

From a Los Angeles Times article on book tours...

If things continue on their current trajectory, book tours will become striated by class. Elite authors will go where they can reach big audiences, while others will have to work the angles to propel a trip on the road.

It's a shame because, for all the hoopla surrounding the latest celebrity memoir, readers are rarely drawn to books by hype machines. We get turned on by trusted friends, by the local bookseller, by a reading, even by a newspaper review. "It was exciting to get a lot of different reviews in regional newspapers," Chaon says, "but it just doesn't happen that much anymore."

Raul Ramos y Sanchez