Maximizing Author Event Presentation
Authors who make a professional presentation at an event are more likely to have a successful outcome
Authors can attend spectacular events when they pay attention and put themselves out there.
However, booking events isn’t enough to seal the deal. The key to a successful event is planning and following through on your materials and presentation.
Putting yourself in your reader’s shoes and planning what they would value the most will get you far.
How should your event space look?
At larger events, it can be overwhelming for attendees to look at all the vendors and truly see what they have to offer.
This is why authors want to create an inviting atmosphere that isn’t overwhelming to guests.
Consider having:
A tablecloth (preferably reusable) to give your table a professional look
List of book prices and how they can pay
Freebies for readers to take
Bags for customers to place their items in
QR codes
Let’s dive a little deeper
How they can pay
You would be surprised how having multiple options for payment methods will do for your business.
While some readers prefer to pay strictly by card, others use Venmo or cash. Better yet, when you can tell people upfront the ways they can pay for items at your table, you increase your chances of a sale.
As a rule of thumb, I always make sure to pull out a hundred dollars varying my cash between ones, fives, tens, and twenties as well as quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies. I also invested in a Square account so I now have a card swipe that I can just plug into my smartphone for readers to swipe their card, sign their name, and I can even email a receipt.
Freebies for readers to take
The freebies that you offer depend on the topic of your book and your audience.
For example, I have a children’s book called Dandelion. At a recent event where I sold only Dandelion copies, I created cardboard vases out of cut-up cardboard boxes for kids to take, created envelopes of seeds, printed coloring pages of images from the book, and also had my bookmarks and business cards available. This attracted young readers to my table and by the end of the day, all my seed envelopes were gone, 90% of my cardboard vases, and 80% of my coloring sheets were gone as well.
Me at the https://lancnativeplantfestival.com/
Knowing your readers and what you can provide to pull them toward your table is important.
Let’s try another example, say your book is a contemporary romance book, what would draw readers in? Maybe it’s:
Stickers with romance sayings or hearts
Bookmarks with a quote from your book
Maybe you create a quiz to test your love with a significant other
Have people sign up with their email for a giveaway for your next book
Trying to think outside the box for your genre and how it relates to your target audience is a great way to create some neat things for your readers.
Having bags for customers
At past events, I always noticed customers toting around the items they’d bought from other authors, arms full.
So, I decided to begin bringing along bags for people who stopped by my table. For people who talked with me about my books or made a purchase, I would bring along paper bags I had received from shopping at my local Giant grocery store and offer them a bag to carry their items. Most of the time, people would thank me for being so prepared and take a bag.
Now, for my next event, as great as recycling is and all, I would like to have my own paper bags with my name and website stamped on them.
Providing QR codes
As a multi-genre author, it’s sad to say but I don’t always have all of my books on me when I’m at an event.
This is where having a QR code to my website at my table comes in handy. From there readers can go directly to my other books and purchase the one they want. I simply create a QR code using a free QR generator and laminate it for my table.
But there are also other uses for QR codes.
Say someone who approaches your table prefers Audiobooks and you happen to have them. Making sure to list what people will find using the QR code can increase the reader’s chance of following through.
For example, when I attended https://lancnativeplantfestival.com/, I placed a QR code in the center of my informational board about Dandelions. And directly below that QR code, I told readers that by using that QR code, they would be taken to a place where they could get free learning activities that paired with the book.
When authors have the chance to be part of an event, they want to bring their A-game.
If authors make sure to:
Obtain a reusable tablecloth for their table, it will elevate their space
Provide multiple ways to pay and be upfront about book prices, they can attract more customers
Create and bring freebies that will pull their audience toward their table, they could secure more readers
Provide bags for customers to enhance their shopping experience
Provide QR codes with clear expectations that take readers easily to their desired items
Then they will be able to have a successful event.