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Host Your Own Event:
Host A Breakfast With An Author
Author: Suzanne James
You can make $100 for three hours of work
I hit the “do or die” stage of my writing career three years ago. It was time to turn my hobby into a profession. Over the next few months I talked to everyone, offered to take any job, and learned the golden rule of self-promotion—listen first. In turn, listening revealed a valuable truth. The public loves to meet authors and the public does not care if writers are traditionally published. If the writer wrote it, and the public read it, then it is published.
This revelation spawned several self-promotion ideas, the best being ‘Breakfast With An Author.’ The concept is simple: book a room for two hours, talk to people, deliver a ten-minute speech, and mingle with potential writers and fiction (or non-fiction) fans. For ten dollars, participants enjoy coffee, donuts, and an inspiring chat. The best part is: you have fun while learning to promote yourself.
I started my self-promotion campaign by making a common blunder: attracting the wrong crowd. Instead of marketing to book readers and buyers, I advertised to other writers. After stepping back and re-evaluating things, I began to advertise and attract fiction fans. Before I knew it, attendance rose. Soon, I was rewriting my speeches and transforming them into something my audience wanted to hear. I went from How to Create Dynamic Heroes to Where Have All the Heroes Gone?
In the beginning, local libraries sponsored the event free of charge. They supplied the room and the coffee, and paid me a small speaker’s fee. This quickly changed when the library insisted I join its volunteer network as a sign of good will. Volunteering proved to be time consuming and defeated the purpose of the events—to establish myself as a professional speaker and writer.
Over time, I decided it would be more profitable to host the event independently. I would charge $10 per attendee and would make, on average, between $100 and $200 for three hours of work. While I never lost money, it did take a while before I generated a good income.
Setting up an event like this is relatively easy. The first step is to decide whether you want the event sponsored by a group or if you want to host it yourself.
If you decide to have the event sponsored, you’ll follow the steps below:
Contact Organization
Call the organization you’re interested in hosting the event and ask for a personal interview. Don’t offer your credentials or idea suggestions until you are face to face with the organization’s representative. If the organization does not see an immediate benefit, it will not support your event or your ideas.Practice Public Speaking
Learn the art of public speaking. Guests will not buy your book if they do not believe you are capable of writing a good book and they will not attend a second event if they do not believe you are a real writer.Be Professional
Arrive on time, dress professionally, and put a smile on your face. Never dress casual.
If you decide to sponsor the event yourself, you’ll follow the steps below:
Target Your Audience
Choose your audience. Who would be most interested in your event? Who would you like to see attend your event?Choose Location
Locate a place and time to host your event. You can host your event at the local library, in a hotel meeting room, in your church’s foyer, or some other establishment.
Once you find the ideal place to host your event, find out when the meeting room is available, the costs involved, if a deposit is needed, and when the final payment is due.
Then find out what other local events are scheduled for the same weekend. A quick look in last year’s entertainment guide, in your local newspaper will suggest which weekends are free. (I live between the famous Stratford Festival, St. Jacobs’s market and Waterloo, home of North America’s largest Oktoberfest. So, I do not hold any workshops between June 1 and Sept 30.)Book A Spot
Book your event. Book the event at least two months, and never more than four months, in advance. This gives you ample time to write and distribute press releases and articles, to pass out and post fliers, and to advertise the event. (I’ve found that the most cost effective method of advertising is posting fliers within a fifteen-minute drive of the event’s venue.)Plan The Menu
Plan the menu. Your menu will consist of coffee and donuts. Will you have the event catered or will you arrive early to set up? Will you have meeting facility provide the food and drink or will you bring it yourself?Choose A Topic
Choose your topic and write your speech. Once you know the event’s location and the target audience, it’s time to choose the topic. The topic should relate to your book, fit the tone of the building, and be a topic you can discuss comfortably. A romance author can talk about first love, autumn love, relationships, or “how to put romance back in a relationship.” If you can’t come up with a topic idea of your own, look at the headlines of national magazines, watch soap operas or talk shows. The world is full of ideas.
Just remember that this event is about having fun. Do not give your guests deep theoretical speeches, but give your guests snappy little stories, inspirational quotes, cute anecdotes, and a few laughs about life as an author—give them a peak into your life.Market Event
Develop your fliers. Fliers, like all advertising, can only attract one or two segments of the population. Your fliers should include a catchy title (in bold), your web address, an email address, a picture of yourself, a picture of your book’s cover, and the date, time, and place of the event. Your fliers should work hard to attract readers to your website. Your website should then sell the event, pre-sell your books, and offer methods of buying tickets to the event. Do not invest more than 20 words explaining the event.Practice
Practice makes perfect. Like every venture, it takes practice to establish a professional image. The more you host these events, the better you become.Be Yourself
Be yourself. My self-promotion efforts won’t work for you. We could talk on the same topic and host the same event in the same building, but attract an entirely different crowd. Your audience came to see you, not someone you’re trying to be.Prepare For The Unexpected
Be ready for the unexpected. These events have a way of attracting speaking opportunities, which in turn, increases writing assignments, which in turn, improves the success rate of your promotion efforts; all of which creates a momentum with the potential to turn any writing and speaking hobby into a full-time career.
Caveat: Do not host an event like this at a bookstore without a firm, legal contract. Several of my colleagues were shocked to find bookstores requiring a percentage of all book sales, a booking fee, and a bill for a portion of all advertising costs, whether the author approved the arrangement or not.
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