Making In-Person Events More Lively

Unless you’ve been fortunate enough to experience a great deal of successful pre-publicity hype, you are liable to find yourself bored at a three-hour event labeled “Meet the Author” no matter how good your book is or how wonderful your personality is. You have to give people a reason to come out of their way to meet you, ask for your signature or listen to your words. There are even bookstores and libraries who won’t want to book an appearance unless you can guarantee traffic.

Short of bribing folks monetarily, you have to give them an incentive. The first thing to do is look at the topic of your book (it doesn’t matter if it is fiction or fact) – What can this topic be tied into? Look at news headlines, both national and local, and find a link. It doesn’t have to be headline hard news, it can be a local human interest or community story. You can also look at the calendar for related themes such as national holidays, ethnic observances, notable anniversaries and more.

My very first book discussion was for my novel Bartlett’s Rule which is the story of a rape survivor who falls in love and the after-effects of what happened for her and the people around her. The bookshop I appeared at was promoting a Women’s Empowerment theme and they hosted a “Book Club Study Discussion Group” (the bulk of the audience read the book prior to the event). The book was featured at the bookstore for a month before the discussion date so the shop saw revenue and the audience was plentiful on that date (which incidentally worked out well as audience members purchased a second novel by me from the store shelves).

Come prepared with a few starter questions to begin and liven up the discussion - Talk about the characters and their behavior and response to the events in the book. Ask why these characters were memorable, liked or disliked? Talk about the punishments that may have been dealt out in the book to both evil and good characters and if the readers thought they were justified. Be prepared for readers to come prepared with their own questions and comments which will capture the audience’s interest.

If your potential audience has not had the opportunity to have already purchased and read your book, then talk about some of the topics covered in the books in an informational format. Using Bartlett’s Rule as a subject, discuss statistics in a “Did you know…?” format. Introduce suggested methods of protection and information about resources for victims. Hand out literature from a local rape crisis center.

Make sure that you publicize your event beforehand. Use your local media, contact community groups that would have an interest in your topic and post notices or hand out flyers (if permitted) at the venue where you will appear. Build the buzz and then enjoy the crowds.


Writing exercise: Write up 5 to 10 questions for discussion from the last book you read. Did the characters have any unique and memorable habits? Was the topic close to your heart?

Writing prompt: Write down the first 5 girls and 5 boys names you can think of – then using 1 to 3 words, what does each name make you think of? (ie: Rose = flower, pretty, feminine)