Author events are the backbone of my store. While every event may not be as well attended as I’d like, every year my top 50 bestselling books are from in-store events. What follows is a preliminary top 10 list of what needs to happen to make an event a success.<\/p>\n
1. Confirm with the author, and\/or publicist a week before the event. This might sound elemental, but twice this year we’ve had whoopsies with authors either getting the date wrong, or forgetting about the event because it was booked six months earlier. This works both ways, unfortunately; we forgot a stock signing that was to occur the same day we left town for our only week-long vacation of the year. Trust us, you do NOT want this to happen at your bookstore. So publicists, it’s a good idea to check in with your scheduled stops a week or two ahead. This kills two birds with one stone: confirming the event and double-checking that the store has all the books they need with enough advance time to spare. Bookselling isn’t rocket science, but it is filled with minutiae and orders coming in and customers needing a hundred things a day, etc., so things do slip through the cracks occasionally.<\/p>\n
2. Try to have a day of the week for your events. For us it’s kids’ events on Saturday mornings and adult events on Thursday nights. This lets folks know that these are days they want to keep open. Few book groups in town meet on Thursdays now, because it always conflicts with our adult events.<\/p>\n
3. Make sure to send press releases well in advance of the event. Newspapers need at least three weeks, more often six, to actually do something with a press release. Be respectful of their deadlines and they’ll be much more likely to run your release. Don’t forget to do calendar listings with all papers. Sometimes this is a separate department from the press release folks. Don’t assume a press release will get a calendar listing automatically.<\/p>\n
4. Don’t know how to write a press release? Learn. They’re not hard and most releases should only be a page, so it’s not rocket science. Often the publisher will have materials ready for you to tweak to your situation, so it’s really not hard.<\/p>\n
5. The minute we book an event, the first thing I do is ask the author, publicist or whomever I booked the event with, to send me a high-resolution author photo and book cover, as well as any press materials they might have. Once I have the materials, I pass them off to Elizabeth who updates the website. As soon as the confirmation is emailed, add the event to your website. This kind of speed pleases the publishers and makes you look more professional. <\/p>\n
6. Make a flyer of your monthly events. We do several different sizes: some for the display window, the rest 8½ x 11 for customers to take away. And, if we’ve got time, we’ll make a calendar strip that can get tucked in every bag with purchase. Our flyers are full-color. This makes a difference, and if you plan ahead, you can get co-op for it, so it pays for itself.<\/p>\n
7. Set-up an in-store display several weeks before the event. We have a great display table right as you walk in and we have all of our monthly author event books on display, with shelftalkers in them announcing the date of the event. Also let people know they can get a book signed without attending the event. <\/p>\n
8. Talk up the event to customers who are buying books by that author. Also, chat it up with folks who are buying similar books. Never underestimate the power of one person saying to another, "Hey, this really interesting author is going to be here on Thursday…"<\/p>\n
9. Don’t forget to order the books in time! This might sound silly, but there have been times when even the best bookseller gets jammed up and either forgets to order or gets the order in too late and the books arrive the day of the event. Make friends with the other indies in your area. It’s really great to be able to send out an alarm of, "Help, I need books!" and have folks come to your aid. I always order more than I’ll likely sell because it looks nice for the author to see a lot of books, and they’re returnable. Don’t forget to order the author’s backlist titles. They sell well and it makes you look like a very confident bookseller by having it. <\/p>\n
10. Treat the author with respect. Don’t leave them alone in the event space to greet customers themselves. Make sure you have enough staff on hand so someone can be with the author. Have something for the author to drink (I always ask the publicist when the event gets booked if the author has a beverage preference). Also, a gift at the end of the event is not only polite but the right thing to do. <\/p>\n
This is the beginning of a longer list of author event tips. Keep watching as we add more to it. And please feel free to add your ideas to this list. I’m always looking for tips on having smoother events.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Author events are the backbone of my store. While every event may not be as well attended as I’d like, every year my top 50 bestselling books are from in-store events. What follows is a preliminary top 10 list of what needs to happen to make an event a success. 1. Confirm with the author, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}