Bookstore Stops 101: Tips for Your Author Event

by Mark Stevens

Between the Facebook “like” buttons, the tweet avalanche, and the endless (here’s another one) blog posts, you sometimes have to wonder whether you are connecting your book with the right audience. Yes, I plunge from the high-dive into social media. I do my best. I try to balance self-promotion with genuine participation. Out here in the virtual village, I’ve met tons of cool readers and sold lots of books.

But when it comes to marketing, there’s one old-school tactic that is my bedrock.

Bookstores. Booksellers. Book people.

I visited 42 stores in 2007 when Antler Dust came out and I’m back on the trail in late 2011 with the sequel, Buried by the Roan. Success rates vary. But here’s how I think about it. You’re a writer. Wouldn’t you want your own built-in agents working for you every day? People who talk to readers all day long?

It’s not about just the event and that particular bookstore stop. It’s about developing a relationship with the store owner (or event manager) and readers, too. (And don’t forget: each event gives you a solid reason to tweet and post.)

A few tips:

1. Query far ahead. Think months. Work with their schedule. Ask if they do events, but be willing to stand around for a few hours with your titles and your nifty cool promotional material. This is true for the chain stores, too. Each Barnes & Noble outlet has its own flair, its own interest in doing “events.”
2. Treat each event like it was the only one you were ever going to do. Ask the bookstore owner for reporter and editor names in the community. Send advance copy books to the local media (no matter how small). The long lead time pays off here, too. Call the reporter or editor a couple weeks before the event, remind them you are on the way.
3. Ask the bookstore if you can send a few flyers. Make the flyers. Send them. Ask the bookstore if the local library might post a flyer if you send one or two. Make them, send them.
4. Find online community calendars (almost every town has one or two). Upload the details.
5. Find writers who live in the town—or nearby. (Again, the bookstore owner will know.) See if you can make a connection and ask for that writer’s help in reaching friends and fans. Pull up their Twitter account and follow some of their followers. Once a connection is established, send a direct message with the details and something personal.
6. Post the signing event on your Facebook page (two weeks out, one week out, “day of” reminder) and tweet it to smithereens. Search your Facebook friends for those who live in the area, create an FB event page, invite them. Find the bookstore’s Twitter handle and follow a bunch of their followers (readers, not the carpet cleaning companies) and then send a direct message once they follow you back. (They will.)
7. Day of event: Ask for a spot near the front of the store. Stand; don’t sit. Be prepared to answer questions about where the bathroom is located. Engage every reader who comes within range. “Any mystery fans here today?” “Looking for something in particular?” “I’m a writer from XYZ town, let me know if you’ve got a minute and I can tell you about my new title.”
8. Come prepared. Bring a bottle of water, breath mints (ahem). Bring copies of reviews, bookmarks, business cards. An 11&17 poster on foam core with your cover. Best of all, bring your quick speech. What is your story about in one sentence? Nail it. Rehearse it. Make it genuine. Not a sales pitch. Ask readers what they like. Engage them. Some will think, “I may not like mysteries but I have a friend…”
9. Send a ‘thank you’ to the store after it’s over and post public ‘thanks’ on FB and Twitter and wherever else your social media heart desires.
10. Not sure yet? Go to book signings and readings by other writers. Take notes. Keep the things you like, dump the elements you don’t.

Now, if you liked this column, back to the virtual world. Please visit my Facebook page and and you could even ‘like’ my protagonist, Colorado hunting guide Allison Coil. https://www.facebook.com/AllisonCoil Hey, and thanks. Nice “meeting” you. Follow me and I'll see you in cyberspace: @writerstevens

The son of two librarians, Mark Stevens was raised in Lincoln, Massachusetts. He worked as a reporter for The Christian Science Monitor, covering a variety of events and issues from the economy, commercial fishing, the environment, politics, then at The Rocky Mountain News, and for The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. He has produced field documentaries across the United States and Latin America. He is the author of the novels ANTLER DUST and BURIED BY THE ROAN and now works in public relations.

Related article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/16/us/ann-patchett-bucks-bookstore-tide-opening-her-own.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=general

Be Careful What You Wish For...

by Jennie Bentley

You know this picture you may have in your head, of the gracious author at her book signing: hair perfectly coiffed, nice clothes, friendly smile? That’s me. It’s release week for Spackled and Spooked, and I’ve got back to back events scheduled this week and for the next two. Three bookstore signings, one release party, one Evening with an Author, one TV appearance, and a three-day conference. Plus a couple of interviews, complete with photographer. What that means is an endless round of worry over make-up and clothes, whether my slip is showing, whether my hair is fluffy enough, how overweight I’ll look when the cameras turn on me...

Last year’s TV appearance for the release of Fatal Fixer-Upper was not auspicious. The anchor started the interview by asking me a question I didn’t understand. I kid you not, it sounded like gibberish. The words made absolutely no sense. I’ve watched the clip since, cringing, and it wasn’t just nerves: the question still doesn’t make sense to me, even when I’m calm. The cringeworthy part, though, is the silence that follows. The deer-in-the-headlights look on my face as I sit there, trying to decipher the question and how to answer it. The dawning horror on the anchor’s face as she realizes that she’s sitting opposite a guest who has frozen.

It worked out in the end, and I don’t think it took more than eight seconds or so. (Which, let me tell you, is an eternity on TV.) Eventually, I said something. Anything. I didn’t care what it was, as long as it filled the silence. I didn’t answer the question, but I was coherent. And it got better from there.

This year I get to do it again, along with all the other stuff I mentioned. If you look closely, you’ll see the manic look in my eyes as I worry about the hair, and the slip, and the fact that at home, I’m revising Plaster and Poison, which is scheduled for release in March, and writing DIY#4, tentatively titled Mortar and Murder, which—if I can get it written by the end of the year—might make it into the stores by the end of 2010.

Can you spell P-R-E-S-S-U-R-E?

Oh yes, and that’s without taking into account the ten or so manuscripts I've critiqued for Killer Nashville, the conference I’m attending next weekend; and the ten or so wannabe authors I have to meet with, to discuss their manuscripts; and the panels I have to prepare for, and the fact that at some point during the weekend, I have to write and ship a guest blog I promised to do on the 16th...

It’s the glamorous life of a writer. And I wouldn’t want it any other way. In September, when it’s all over and the only thing I have to worry about is finishing Mortar and Murder by the end of the year, I’ll look back on it and smile. But for now, if you happen to catch sight of me in the next few weeks, forgive me if I’m not the picture of the smiling, gracious author, would you? Ignore that rabid look in my eyes, and the way I twitch when someone says my name? And if I don’t answer your question right away, give me eight seconds for that deer-in-the-headlights look to go away and my brain to fire on all cylinders again? I’ll get there, I promise!

And if you’re in my neck of the woods this month, I’d love to see you. Check out my website, to see where I’ll be, and when!