Author appearance are almost as important as marketing and promoting online. This was a tough one for me to accept. I can do presentation, but I’ve always had trouble with talking one-on-one with people. Because of the conferences I’ve done, I’ve gotten a bit more comfortable with it. Still need some practice. But with appearances, you get to interact with people who may be interested in your book but are not in your target audience.
As you know, I did my first author talk yesterday at Rosedale Neighborhood Library in DC and it was amazing. My speech was 40 minutes. Whenever I practiced it, my throat would be sore. The presentations I’ve done in the past were no more than 20 minutes. I was kinda afraid I wouldn’t have a voice when I needed to give the presentation, But, everything worked out.
So, how do you give an author talk? I struggled with this one. I didn’t know what I was supposed to talk about. This website helped me a lot.
How to do a Book Talk an Author’s Guide
I also learned that readers, even people who don’t normally read fantasy, like to hear about the world building process and about what it takes to create a book.
My author talk was intimate, which I liked. Nice small crowd in a nice neighborhood library. I expected it to be in a room away from the main area. When I found out it wasn’t I was more than a little nervous. But, I liked that my author talk wasn’t separated. People using the library popped in and out of the presentation area to listen. A lot of people were drawn in by my cover! See, the importance of a book cover.
Here are some pics from my author talk.
I need to edit the video of my presentation. I plan to have posted by Friday. Side note, when you plan on recording for an hour with a new camera, make sure your camera can do it. I never recorded video with my Canon SX510. During the author talk, it stopped recording, for some reason, after 16 minutes. Don’t think it had anything to do with the camera. More like I didn’t adjust the settings properly. Fortunately, my mom and publisher recorded the whole thing.
