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Ci7 Education: Events University [6]
- By Liz Button [7]
The “Events University: In-store and Off-site Author Events” education session at the seventh annual Children’s Institute [8]in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, offered booksellers the opportunity to learn best practices for hosting events in-store and off-site, including partnering with schools and libraries, hosting large-scale events, and using alternate venues.
Hosting author events can be an effective way to strengthen a customer base, build goodwill within your community, and make money, but tackling the ins and outs of events can be daunting, time-consuming, and overwhelming. This full-day, two-part workshop [9]on Wednesday, June 26, featured booksellers who have experienced event success offering attendees tips for navigating events in a small space; best practices for ticketing events and anticipating turnout; how to launch a book festival in your community; and more.
Booksellers can watch a full video of the session on ABA’s Education Resources page [10] (a BookWeb username and password are required; e-mail [email protected] [11] for login credentials).
Panelists for the first half of the day included Alex Schaffner, events director at Brookline Booksmith [12] in Brookline, Massachusetts; Heather Hebert, owner of Children’s Book World [13] in Haverford, Pennsylvania; Stephanie Appell, director of books and events for young readers at Parnassus Books [14] in Nashville, Tennessee; as well as Erica Barmash, marketing director at Bloomsbury Children’s Books in New York City. The second half of the day featured Blue Willow Bookshop [15] event coordinator Cathy Berner and owner Valerie Koehler, who spoke about how they pull off three children’s festivals annually: Bookworm, Tweens Read, and TeenBookCon.
Here are some of the tips panelists offered for putting on in-store and off-site events:
Before You Begin Planning...
- Have a clear vision of the kinds of events you want to host
- Be realistic about the kinds of events your store can accommodate and the kind of the numbers you can produce
- Once you’ve confirmed an author, make sure to gather and convey all necessary event information
- Speak with the author about their expectations for the event
- Have the author’s travel plans, arrival arrangements, AV needs and backup AV plan, tech run-through, and start time nailed down
- Make a formal confirmation sheet that you send to the publisher to help you gather important data
- Communicate to the publisher what your store considers a successful event
- Ask about publishers’ expectations for the event
Marketing Assets
- Cover image and author headshot
- Online graphic with tour info
- Ask if the publisher or author will act as a partner on the event and cross-promote on their social channels
- Publishers might have marketing materials you can ask for
- Talk to the publisher about tour announcements/reveal
Things to Consider When Looking for the Perfect Venue
- Anticipated attendance
- Size of the event, cost, and relationships with local venues/organizations
- Venue size (good to have different venues for different types of events and backups in case your first choice is unavailable)
- Any community partner who can lend you a venue for free
- Cost of renting
- Staffing (whether or not the venue provides staff for events and what type of assistance they will offer)
- Physical space layout (how the flow of attendees will be in the space)
- Unique needs
- Accessibility
- Location/parking
- Local schools/libraries (they are low-cost venues, helps foster a relationship with school district)
Pre-event Checklist
- Staff arrival time for load-in, allotted time for loading books in and out of venue
- Confirm publisher contact, venue contact
- Confirm author’s arrival time
- Prep green room for author
- Make sure security is in place if needed (venue security, private security, or police detail?)
- Transportation of books to the venue
- Will the books be pre-signed? Where will this take place?
- Be prepared to introduce the author to audience
- Flap the books to make signing easier
- Plan how to transition from signing line to photo ops
- Contact the venue to accommodate author special needs
Staffing
- Educate and inform staff of details
- Designate a point person and make sure everyone knows who the point person is and where they’ll be
- It doesn’t hurt to plan too much (figure out exactly how many tasks there will be and who will be taking on each role)
- Don’t understaff
- Make sure you have enough staff to cover the store/decide if you will have to close early
- Make sure anyone participating knows all the basics of the event as well as their particular job
- Prior to the event, get everyone into a huddle and go through the whole plan
Managing Turnout
- Make sure that crowd management is one of the elements of your staffing decisions
- Plan the flow of traffic in advance, from arrival to departure
- Set up early!
- Write up a team plan and communicate that plan
- For an in-store event, make sure you are set up in time to accommodate people when they’re likely to start arriving
- Communicate to attendees what to do at multiple points (via e-mail prior to the event, or via microphone, signage, people physically directing them during the event)
- Even if you’re very busy, make sure to treat any customer interaction as important and see to the needs of individuals as questions or problems arise
- Prior to the event, send a reminder to attendees with event information, when doors open, signing guidelines, cancellation policy, etc.
Ticketing
- If event is ticketed, publishers like to check in on sales (it’s important to communicate sales early so publishers can ramp up marketing if necessary)
- Look into using ticketing services
- Do book/ticket bundles
- As you do more ticketed events you get to know the market
- Be communicative with your publicist and proactive about maximizing sales and making the event look good even if it does not match expectations.
- If need be, you can always add a promo code to reduce the cost of the ticket, which can help fill seats at the last minute
- Promo codes are also good when working with an organization that would like to give their members a special discount
Ordering
- Over-order just a little (it’s better to have slightly too many books than to sell out)
- Keep accurate ordering records
- Order direct from publishers for better discount so it leaves plenty of time
- Order drop shipments
- Make sure the publisher knows it’s an event order so you can have immediate returns
- Look at factors such as genre, time since book release, whether an author is local, etc. to gauge how many books you need
- Check on whether any backlist sales or promotion is expected by publisher
Pre-sales
- Promote your event everywhere the book itself is displayed/shelved in the store, which lets casual browsers in on the event
- One way to drive sales is letting people know that the earlier they pre-order their book, the earlier they’ll be able to get in line at the event
- Take advanced orders for signed/personalized books to be mailed, but first, confirm with publisher, then include that everywhere you promote the event
- Remember: ticket sales are not always indicative of turnout!
Post-sales
- Aim to have some signed books left over to add to inventory
- Have a signed book sticker (signed books make for easy displays)
- After event, flap and stack books for author (some authors prefer to wait to promote signed stock until end of tour, so one store doesn’t compete with another for sales)
- Design your own “autographed copy” sticker to double as advertising when people post photos of their signed books on social media
Running a Festival
- Identify your festival’s mission
- When partnering with school districts, make sure to have the support of someone in district's administration office
- Make friends with the building principal and the school librarian
- Research whether the town, city, state, or county’s economic development commission has funds you can apply for
- Find volunteer students to help unpack books at schools
- Make the kids the focus (for example, ask authors to answer kids’ questions first)
- Send out requests for submissions to publishers six to eight months ahead of time
- Work hard to find authors who write about a variety of life experiences
- Give authors enough downtime during the festival so they don’t wander off
- Have panels moderated by experienced librarians or teachers
- Have a welcome team with coordinated T-shirts
- Ask attendees to register for festival (include a few demographic questions in application to be able to report back to publisher)
- Have authors come to the store the night before to sign their books and/or host a party for authors
- Debrief with staff immediately after the festival