THE BUSINESS OF CHILDREN'S BOOKS: What makes a high-quality school visit?

After an exciting couple of weeks (thanks for all the comments, emails, and FB congrats!), it's back-to-business here at the blog. The dust is finally settling a bit (metaphorically, I mean--it's still pretty thick on the furniture around my house).  I am trying to reflect on this experience and look forward to sharing the many wonderful bits of advice writing colleagues have sent along.

Meanwhile, before the insanity began, I was excerpting portions of my SCBWI presentation on Making School & Library Appearances as Part of Your Book Promotion Platform. Today, I'll get back to this with a discussion of QUALITY.

There are several levels at which the author/illustrator can create a high-quality appearance.

1. The initial contact and dialogue with the host
2. The appearance confirmation and preparatory correspondence
3. The presentation itself
4. Post-presentation follow-up

Today will focus on the INITIAL CONTACT AND DIALOGUE WITH THE HOST. While students or community members are the ultimate audience for your presentation, a quality appearance begins with the coordinator or host (teacher, school administrator, librarian, PTA parent volunteer). For this individual, an important element of quality is an author's accessibility and responsiveness. In our age of Twitter, Facebook, multiple e-mails, phones (seem a little old-fashioned sometimes), day jobs and stolen writing time, it can be hard to manage appearance requests coming from many different directions. However, the faster you respond to an inquiry, the more likely you are to book the appearance. Make this initial contact HIGH QUALITY by:

1. Providing a best email address or other contact information on your website and all appropriate venues. A one-click link to contact you OR to your publisher/appearance coordinator OR to direct site visitors to your AUTHOR APPEARANCE INFORMATION PAGE is ideal.
2. Checking all of your email and other networking accounts routinely. If you do not have time for a long conversation, a quick "I'll be in touch" reply is much better than weeks of silence.
3. Installing an auto-reply to any email address from which your answer will not be prompt to advise folks of your response time or provide an alternate contact method.
4. Drafting a reply email with relevant information (this can be modified per request but at least you won't have to start fresh every time and are less likely to forget key details). This email should include:

• A thanks for their appearance request and confirmation that you are scheduling school/library visits.
• Your standard honorarium (e.g., $X/day plus travel and expenses for UP TO 3 (or 4) presentations plus book signing), perhaps noting that you need further details regarding this request before finalizing price (this is a good line to include if you are inclined to be flexible on fees).
• The information you need from the host (exact address, email(s) and contact details; best dates for presentation; age/grade level and group size(s) you will be addressing; number of presentations, etc., they have in mind).
• Links to your website, educational materials (such as reading guides or presentation descriptions), etc., so that you continue to show the value of your appearance program in the time between first contact and confirmation.
• An explanation of what happens next (e.g., "As soon as I receive this information I will contact you to see if we can get this on the calendar.").

ONCE this conversation yields an agreed-upon presentation date, fee, and rough itinerary, the next step in ensuring a high-quality appearance is your confirmation and subsequent correspondence with your host. This will be the subject my next "Book Business" post.

Meanwhile, wishing you a happy week ahead.

MAKING SCHOOL & LIBRARY APPEARANCES A STRONG PART OF YOUR PROMOTIONAL PLATFORM, PART II--VOLUME

Let's just jump right in to our topic today: How does one generate or increase appearance requests? In response to the question of how he got folks to vote for him, the late Speaker of the House, Tip O'Neill said something to the effect of "Well, first, I ask."

ASKING works at several levels. For first-time authors new to appearances asking means reaching out to personal contacts and the local community, and offering presentations to develop credibility and refine presentations. Think beyond your home area by considering all travel (will you be near your old high school or college, visiting a teacher-friend out-of-state, etc.?) an opportunity for book promotion. As your experience increases, ASKING can involve applying to speak at conferences and events. Again, target venues based on your platform and seek out opportunities for places where you will drive interest & book sales. Is affordability an issue for some of the schools interested in booking you? Here's a link to a great tip from Alexis O'Neill courtesy of Tina Nichols Coury's amazing blog. 

Asking also means updating your web presence so that visitors to your sites are aware of your travel plans. Be sure to include an easy, one-click link to your calendar of upcoming appearances so that folks in places you'll be visiting are more inclined to try to reach you. For the tech savvy, holding contests for signed books, Skype visits, and other online promotions can raise awareness of your appearance availability. 

SETTING OPTIMAL PARAMETERS may be more important than you realize in terms of establishing a positive relationship with potential hosts and making sure that all expectations are met. Key parameters are:

-PRICE. In setting your honorarium, consider your level of experience, publishing credits, geographic region and target audience(s). Factor in the hazards of value pricing--the less folks pay, the more they want :) Be consistent and describe WHAT hosts will get for your price. The majority of authors with whom I work, quote an honorarium in terms along the lines of $X per day for UP TO THREE (or four) one-hour presentations.

-AUDIENCE(s) I've made mention of this before but will say it again because I think it's useful. You may be an experienced writing instructor, a former grade school teacher, and/or just be very comfortable speaking to kids of all ages, BUT if you have not published a book for a particular age/grade group you should not offer to speak to this level because you are not the ideal author/illustrator for this host AND they are not going to buy quantities of your book. Similarly, given the amount of time it takes to prepare for an appearance, be honest about what type of presentations you are willing to do and avoid the "specially-designed" offer as so many times hosts aren't really sure what they want and this type of vaguary can result in mutual disappointment.

-AVAILABILITY. It's fine to do appearances only at certain times of year, days of week, geographical areas. Limiting options can actually encourage bookings as it takes some pressure off inexperienced hosts in terms of defining what it is they want you to do. One author with whom I work strongly encourages midweek school visits (no Mondays or Fridays) for optimal energy from student audiences.

Setting parameters also helps you clarify the type of school and library appearances you truly want to do.  This can contribute greatly to another critical objective: BALANCING promotion, commitments, and writing goals.

From asking, we move on to ways to make yourself accessible to potential school and library hosts--that'll be Friday's post.

Making School & Library Appearances a Strong Part of Your Promotional Platform, Part I

Thanks to all who have asked for information from my April 11 presentation at SCBWI Western Washington. As I began editing my notes into manageable form, I came to the conclusion that the easiest way to convey this information is by posting it here at the blog in a few parts. So, let's begin with two ways to consider school & library appearances:

1. From a book promotion perspective, school & library appearances should satisfy one primary goal: To drive readers to your current books, past and future books, and to you as an author.

2. However, many authors have another important goal for School & Library Appearances: Income. For some authors, school visit honoraria payments make a significant impact on their balance sheets.

This is an important difference to realize as you make decisions about many elements of your promotional platform, including School & Library appearances. While not mutually exclusive, it may be useful to decide whether you are doing appearances primarily to generate maximum income OR for optimal book promotion and to lay groundwork for future books.  Though the nuances can be different, for both of these objectives, most authors and illustrators with whom I discuss this question have 3 concerns:

1. VOLUME: Scheduling more appearances and/or getting the right type of appearances (more, better "gigs").

2. QUALITY: Making scheduled appearances worthwhile for school or library host, students, and themselves and moving books and/or generating interest in future appearances (e.g., an enjoyable, mutually beneficial experience that does not end when the author leaves the assembly hall).

3. BALANCE: Maintaining a balance between handling self-promotion efforts, maintaining publicity commitments for your publisher, and managing editorial deadlines & new writing projects (having a writing life--and a life!).

These concerns are inter-related. By optimizing quality, for example, you can increase volume. By setting some parameters to create balance in your promotion-writing-living life, you are able to narrow marketing targets and more efficiently increase volume. And, an established, quality appearance program tends to organically generate interest and additional requests, diminishing the need to work on the issue of volume and helping the writer maintain balance.

Friday's post will cover concern #1: VOLUME.

Meanwhile, just finished reading the arc of Holly Black's WHITE CAT, due out next month. This is an amazing story about a teenage boy, Cassel Sharpe, his clan of conning "curse workers," and the complex relationships between memory, truth and dreams. Working his way through the twisting magical-mystery plot and settings ranging from an elite prep school to a pack-rat's chaotic house to Atlantic City, Cassel is a fascinating unreliable narrator--a liar who loves to lie yet at the same time may not realize the truth of his own identity. Keep your eye out for this one in bookstores May 4th!