Comments on: What Makes a Good Event?

By: Stephanie Greene

Stephanie Greene — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 16:59:15 +0000

I’m with the “rude author” side. It has to be one, spoiled author who doesn’t feel thrilled to see 40 people. That sounds like a roomful of enthusiasm to me.

By: Lupe Ruiz-Flores

Lupe Ruiz-Flores — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 21:37:35 +0000

I think that even if only one person shows up, the author should respect and honor the audience of one.

By: Christina

Christina — Wed, 15 Aug 2012 13:58:28 +0000

That author should be ashamed of himself. I know I was shocked when I went to a local event by a very famous children’s author-illustrator who began by telling the audience that she never visited the same bookstore twice but, lucky us, our bookstore sold so many books she was visiting us again. This attitude really soured me on someone I assumed would be a down-to-earth, humble, cheerful sort of person.

By: Elizabeth Bluemle

Elizabeth Bluemle — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 21:34:04 +0000

Yes, so often we get librarians and teachers at events, who book paid visits with the authors, or end up ordering multiple classroom copies of a book. You just never know who might walk through the doors! I’ve been on both sides, as an author and a bookseller, and had “crowds” of 1 and groups of 100. I think it helps to have realistic expectations, to understand the variables that affect attendance (and remind ourselves what events we attend and skip in our own lives), and for all parties to engage in the process with energy, enthusiasm, and professionalism. Our events almost always have a magical feel, and customers leave thanking us for bringing those authors and artists to the community. For every person who attends an event, the good word spreads to five or ten other people, and that is gold — for the store, and for the author.

By: Elizabeth Bluemle

Elizabeth Bluemle — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 21:06:10 +0000

I also think it’s funny that attendance numbers are viewed with fairly static expectations no matter the population of a region. When we pull 200 people in a town of 5,000, that’s an astonishing per-capita return. When we pull 30 (.006 of our population), and a New York City store pulls 50 (.000006 of its population), we’re still doing a fantastic job of bringing in readers! : )

By: Andy

Andy — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 19:15:18 +0000

I run a reading series at a bookstore in NYC, and I find that a packed house is sometimes worse for engagement between author and audience. Those times that I’ve had a celebrity memoirist have seen huge numbers of attendees, but they feel cramped and anxious and leave as soon as the talk ends.
Better to have a medium-size crowd that feels comfortable and excited. In turn, they’ll feel like the value of that evening is something they need to pay back to the author and bookstore by buying the book and telling friends.

By: Jason Hunt

Jason Hunt — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 17:34:28 +0000

I used to write country music in Nashville, and I knew Garth Brooks when he was still working in a boot store. (In fact, I bought my first Western boots from him!) Although he is a musician and not a writer, I think the author referred to above can learn a lot from him. In the early days, Garth would treat a group of five fans with all the enthusiasm most artists reserve for huge auditoriums. And once he was famous, he would spend hours signing autographs for hundreds of people when there was really nothing for him to gain from it. The lesson I took away from that was this: If someone is willing to take a few hours out of their life to read one of my books, then I can certainly take a few hours out of mine to thank them, whether there are 4, 40 or 400.

By: Susan Kushner Resnick

Susan Kushner Resnick — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 17:15:13 +0000

I might be upset if only 7 people came to a reading, but never at the bookseller! It’s the author’s job to create desire. Personally, I would be thrilled with 20 strangers taking the time to come hear me read. Fingers crossed, I’ll get such crowds when I hit the bookstores who are kind enough to have me this fall.

By: A.

A. — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 16:13:12 +0000

Thank you, thank you, thank you for writing this.

I have been on the receiving end of the “not enough attendance” rebuke, both from authors and from publicists, and I know it stings, especially when the message is delivered haughtily and without courtesy or consideration. I am sorry that happened to you.

I am the marketing manager/event booker for a bookstore in the Southwest; we do a lot of events at our store. I try to maintain a good balance between nationally-touring authors and local folks with something to say. We struggle with this same attendance issue all the time. Sometimes, no matter what you do or how hard you work, the attendance just doesn’t materialize the way you want it to. Fortunately, for us, that experience is usually followed up by an event that draws dozens more people than we expected. We are methodical and meticulous in our promotion, but we are competing for people’s attention with a lot of activities and events.

For me, this is the bottom line, and believe me when I say this knowledge is hard-won: it does not matter how big an author is in New York or Cleveland or Dubuque, Iowa. We have a particular customer base for our store that has very particular interests. We can draw 150 people and pack the store for a local author with a small-press book about water issues in the West (a very hot topic for us right now, literally and figuratively), and then the next week draw 20 for a NYT bestselling novelist who draws 200 in other markets.

I think in this age of constant media bombardment, people know what they like, and what they want to pay attention to, and that’s it. People are not as swayed as they used to be by media celebrity or news coverage or NYT-listed status. A big “media push,” or sending out 10 emails about an event is not the solution to a problem of appeal and relevancy to the audience.

We know what works for our store, and I try to book what works, but I have had publicists take personal offense when I try to gently explain to them that while we COULD host their brilliant debut novelist writing dense literary fiction about Nova Scotia, we will get maybe – MAYBE – 10 people at the event. It’s not about the quality of the book. It’s about not the author. It’s certainly not about the publisher (our customers can’t tell one publisher from another, in 99% of cases). Our customers like what they like and that’s the end of the story. We have tried over, and over, and over again to do “different” and “new” things, and it always ends up the same way. And I firmly believe in that old saw about “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results.” I also believe in Seth Godin’s advice that marketers need to “find products for their customers, not customers for their products.”

At the same time, we have had twelve people at a poetry event and I considered it a “success,” because the audience was really engaged and active, the author loved the interaction and the enthusiasm, we sold some books, and everyone walked away happy. And then we generated repeat business from that happiness. If we can connect people to a great book or author, and that creates an emotional connection between the customer and our store, I believe that is success. Success is how you define it. I do not do what I do just to achieve big attendance or sales numbers at our events; if I wanted to live my life by numbers, I would be a stockbroker and not have to worry about how I’m going to make my student loan payments. I do what I do because I love books and I want to help other people love books. I care about our customers, and want to help them get what they want. I am not in this business to make authors or publicists happy. Our customers are who keep us in business year after year by buying our products, and loving the store.

I understand perfectly why publicists, authors, and store owners are concerned about the number of butts in the seats at events – that’s only practical, and just good business. But it’s also good business to treat people right, and that goes for folks on both sides of the fence, IMO.

One more thought. Every year, big movie studios put out big movies costing millions of dollars, that then flop at the box office and lose buckets of money. The same thing happens in the music business, both with CDs and with concert tours. At the publisher level, publishers put out expensively-acquired, mega-hyped books that fail to reach anticipated sales levels. Bookstores really have no reason to expect that we will not be subject to the same whims of the market that these other entities are subject to, when it comes to events.

I apologize for the length of my reply, but again, thanks for posting this. It was just what I have needed to hear someone else say, for a long time.

By: Ellen

Ellen — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 16:04:21 +0000

I inquired of a local bookstore what would be required to have a reading/signing at that store and was informed that I’d have to guarantee a certain number of attendees. Obviously, some bookstores also don’t “get” it.