Today I’m going to share some of the ways I prepare for an author event. Specifically, a bookstore appearance where you read your work and participate in a discussion with the audience.
After the She’s Not Home launch event I got some feedback that I was really prepared and easy to work with. This isn’t the first time I’ve heard this after an appearance. I always find it a little baffling because…me? Really? I don’t consider myself particularly easy or comfortable in the spotlight.
Nevertheless, the She’s Not Home launch was a great event. The vibe was warm, celebratory, and fun. I actually enjoyed the opportunity to read my work to an audience and discuss it with a fellow author I admire.
I credit this not to my ability to just be myself or act natural in the spotlight, but rather my ability to prepare for an event ahead of time. Like any performance, most illusions of comfort and ease are borne from hours of work behind the scenes.
While I’m by no means an expert at prepping for author appearances, I am an anxious introvert. Despite my temperament I’ve figured out how to make these events not only successful, but enjoyable.
In this post I assume you already have an event on the calendar. Maybe your anxiety is mounting and you’re wondering why you agreed to this. But take heart. If I can do it, anyone can.
Consider asking a fellow author or other public figure to moderate
For a non-celebrity author planning an in-person local event, a conversation partner can help a lot. First of all, I think it’s far less intimidating to sit up there with a buddy than it is to go it alone. A conversation partner can also help drive attendance and add depth to your post-reading discussion.
Far from dividing the spotlight, I view the in conversation with feature as a legitimizing force. I say this both as a featured author standing at the podium and as an attendee in the audience for other authors’ events. It represents a vote of confidence from a trusted figure. In my experience, it also promises a more interesting event.
Confirm expectations with the bookstore
After you’ve confirmed your event with the bookstore, find out what they expect from you. Be proactive here. Observe how they talk about author events in their email newsletter and scour their social media for photos of past events. You can learn a lot about the venue and overall vibe this way.
Also, ask them about the total length of the event and how long authors typically spend on their readings. You can skip this part if you’ve been to several similar events at this bookstore and know the ropes already. Just make sure you know. This is how you walk in prepared.
Choose your reading weeks ahead of time
Now that you know how long you need to read, select a couple passages to represent your book’s story and overall vibe. This will be tricky. You need to provide something compelling and satisfying without giving too much away.
You’ll also likely want to edit your passages. There’s no rule you have to read verbatim from the published page. Remove any extraneous details, non-essential characters, references to subplots, and anything that requires context. Passages should be concise and stand alone with little to no explanation. Assume your audience has not yet read the book, even if it’s been out for a while.
Mark up your text
You can make the above edits by hand in your personal copy of your book — I do — but I’ve seen other authors type up their readings and print them out larger, with bigger line spacing. This can make it easier to see and harder to lose your place.
Also consider making navigational marks. Identify places you want to pause and look up at the audience. Then, mark these spots so you can reorient quickly when you look down again.
This should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: if you’re reading from your book, mark your pages clearly. Don’t make your audience wait for you to flip back and forth until you figure out which sticky flag has your next reading.
Take time to rehearse
Spend these weeks leading up to your event rehearsing a little every day. Leave yourself time to gain confidence.
When you rehearse, include any surrounding commentary you plan to give for introduction, transitions, or context. That casual-sounding commentary should feel as second-nature as the reading itself.
Practice all of this — your complete reading — with a stopwatch or timer running. I use an app called Fin to keep track of how much speaking time I have left. Tweak your reading until it fits within the recommended length. Practice until you feel one hundred percent confident in what you will say and how long it will take you to say it.
If you’re super overwhelmed by this, ask for help. Practice in front of a friend, ideally someone unfamiliar with your book who can give you fresh ears. Ask someone who has read your book for passage selection ideas. I also found it helpful to peruse James Navé and Allegra Huston’s book How to Read for an Audience and Touch People’s Hearts (affiliate link) for inspiration.
Invite all of your local social circles
I typically feel uncomfortable marketing my work to my friends and neighbors. Let’s be real, they don’t bombard me with asks and updates about their work. These are my personal contacts, not my professional ones.
If you share this mindset, throw it out the window when promoting an event. Invite your neighbors, your book club (especially your book club), people you volunteer with, former colleagues, friends, acquaintances, literally everybody.
Then do it again. Send something to your group texts, invite people to the official Facebook event, mention your event in face-to-face conversations, post in the Slack #off-topic channel. Without being obnoxious or excessive, remember most people need to hear about an event at least three different ways before they decide to attend.
Also, your friends probably think it’s cool you’re having a book event and would be bummed to miss it because they were out of the loop.
Bottom line is, the bookstore will probably promote your event to their email list and social media followers, and they might submit it to local media event calendars, but you can’t rely on this to attract a crowd. Most people who come to your event will come for you — so you need to tell them (at least three times).
Use your connections to seek out promotional opportunities
Think about where people who might be interested in you or your book get their information. Where might an announcement about your event catch their eye?
I’m very involved in my neighborhood, so I took out an ad in our monthly newsletter. I also created an event in my book club’s Facebook group. A program on our local NPR station that interviewed me a few years earlier invited me back to talk about She’s Not Home. I worked with them to have it air the day of my launch event.
You might coach a crossfit class at your gym or be a regular at an open mic night. Can you post a flyer on the community bulletin board there? Maybe you’re involved with a local organization with a big online presence. You could ask them to reshare a post about your event.
For an event farther afield from your stomping grounds, you’ll need to reach out for these connections. I’ll talk more about this in another post, but this is a good reason to pitch events in towns where you have some kind of home-field advantage. You could’ve gone to college there and maintained some connections, or you might have a friend who lives there. Maybe an author who blurbed your book knows someone who works at their town’s public radio station. Ideally, someone can help you find an “in” to spread the word.
However you do it, leave no stone unturned.
Choose your outfit well in advance
The She’s Not Home launch was the first time I really intentionally planned how I would look. It caused an incomprehensible reduction in stress. That evening I felt comfortable and confident. I daresay I had fun.
Regardless of your relationship to fashion in general, how we look and present ourselves to the world affects how we feel about ourselves on the inside. It affects how we behave.
Think about how you want to show up to this event. How do you envision yourself, as the person who wrote this book for the audience you’re about to read it to? Integrate this with what you learned in the confirm expectations step. Try out different outfits. Mix and match things you don’t usually wear together. See how close you can get to the vibe you want.
If you’re as lost as I am trying to dress yourself, ask a fashion-savvy friend for help. These friends always seem eager for such a challenge.
Don’t stop at clothes. Choose accessories, shoes, and any necessary outerwear. Make sure it feels good with your outfit. Have fresh makeup and nail color, if that’s your thing, and know how to apply them. If you have hair that requires styling, have a plan you know will work. Never plan to learn something new from YouTube the day of.
Also, it’s completely okay to pay someone to do your hair, nails, and/or makeup. It’s okay to buy a couple new pieces if your wardrobe has gone the way of 2020’s darkest days. You can barter with a friend for fashion styling help. This is a professional event where everyone will be looking at you for almost the entire time. Everything you do to increase your comfort in your own skin will help the event go more smoothly, from the inside out.
Remember: this is your job
Bookstore events and readings are professional activities for you as an author. It is your job to help drive attendance and give the audience an experience worth their time.
Keep in mind, author events are not free. The bookstore has paid employees to staff the event and placed orders for the stacks of books on the table. If you’re appearing with a conversation partner, that person has given their time, and the bookstore may have placed an extra order of their books for the table, too. You’re far more likely to receive future support from these people when you do your part to help your event succeed.
Not only that, this is an opportunity to make a great impression on your audience. I don’t care what anyone says about hashtags or algorithms. Word of mouth can still sell a lot of books in this industry. So what if most of the people in the audience are your friends? Impress them with a great event and they’ll be more likely to tell their friends to check out your book. Hopefully at least some of those people will buy it from the bookstore where you had your event. This is how you build a professional reputation — and get invited back when you publish your next book.
Have any lingering questions about preparing for a bookstore event? Drop them in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer them!
Leave a Reply