My first Author's Talk
It’s been a couple of weeks now since my first author’s talk and it has taken me this long to get over the shock!
I was more than a little nervous about how the whole thing would turn out. Writing this stuff is one thing but talking about it is something else. Now, bear in mind that this all took place in the school that I teach in: a secondary school with about 1200 students. The librarian, Hilary, had read the first book early on and given me some great feedback. In fact, she was the one who suggested that it would work best as a YA title, which I had never previously considered. Well, Hilary wanted to have a way of publicising the talk which took place on March 3rd, World Book Day. Together we came up with: “Which one of your teachers is THE SECRET AUTHOR?” She publicised this in the library and it really did catch the students’ attention with a number of my students asking me directly if I knew who the secret author was. Which was pretty cool.
On the actual day I went up to the library early to give me time to get into position but also to lay out my publicity along with my wife, Christine. We’d had five posters of the cover made up, copies of the book to sell along with laminated book-marks to act as giveaways.
As we were laying all this out with my Book Elves, Miriam and Hayley, we heard a commotion outside. I asked the librarian what was causing the noise and she told me that that was coming from the people in the queue. FunniIy enough, it was about that time that I started to get really nervous.
Before the doors opened I had to go and hide myself away out the back so that I could be properly introduced. In the meantime, a number of staff who had turned up to support me were pressed into service by Hilary who lined four of them up at the front. She then asked the students to vote on which one of these did they think was THE SECRET AUTHOR. The students loved this but I was in full panic mode out the back because I couldn’t really hear what was going on. I’d probably still be waiting there now if there hadn’t been this sudden, tumultuous applause prompting me to stumble out into the light.
I thought that I knew how this would all pan out; I mean, I work with students everyday. But this was different. As soon as I appeared my wife and the Elves spun the display boards around revealing the posters before moving through the crowd circulating the bookmarks. The students were ridiculously excited by all of this, as was I. I just stood there holding up a copy of the book while they applauded. It was a great feeling and sort of vindicated all the hours of work we’ve put into it.
The bookmarks were a little project my wife had cooked up. She wanted all the students to take something away with them which would include both our web address and the title of the book. But she was also sensitive to the cost implications. In the end, after considering various options, the 60 bookmarks cost us £6.66 exactly – I know- and they really caught the student’s imagination.
Then I was into my talk. The Powerpoint didn’t work but that didn’t seem to matter. I started off by talking about how Dennis the Menace and Gnasher had gotten me into the whole reading business in the first place. The bit that I’d been dreading was reading an extract from the book but I’d chosen an early section detailing a bird attack and that seemed to go down well. After that, I started to calm down and enjoy myself. I talked a bit about how the book had come into being before opening the floor to a Q + A session. Simply put, there were two types of question: those about writing and those about self-publishing. I hadn’t expected the latter but there were lots of students who looked upon this more as a Small Business Start-Up talk than anything else. They were curious to know what sorts of percentages people like Amazon offered and more than a little shocked to learn about the sorts of deals favoured by the major publishing houses.
That left about ten minutes for signing copies. This was a bit of a bun fight with 18 books being sold on the day and another ten sold subsequently. I have no way of knowing how many were sold as e-books and, whilst there was a spike in my sales after that, it was definitely the printed copies which generated all the interest. I sold the book at £7.99 which is a £1 saving on the Amazon price. The book does look very professional and no one baulked at the price.
It was a great experience all round and generated a huge level of interest and discussion with a number of staff members going on to buy copies both for themselves and family members. This definitely impacted on my sales figures but it was just as important because it gave me a real mental boost.
None of this would have been possible without the help of the librarian: Hilary Sutton. She is extremely knowledgeable about her students and what they like to read. She was the one who orchestrated the whole Secret Author campaign and worked tirelessly behind the scenes to ensure that the event was a huge success. Personally, I can’t thank her enough.
I was more than a little nervous about how the whole thing would turn out. Writing this stuff is one thing but talking about it is something else. Now, bear in mind that this all took place in the school that I teach in: a secondary school with about 1200 students. The librarian, Hilary, had read the first book early on and given me some great feedback. In fact, she was the one who suggested that it would work best as a YA title, which I had never previously considered. Well, Hilary wanted to have a way of publicising the talk which took place on March 3rd, World Book Day. Together we came up with: “Which one of your teachers is THE SECRET AUTHOR?” She publicised this in the library and it really did catch the students’ attention with a number of my students asking me directly if I knew who the secret author was. Which was pretty cool.
On the actual day I went up to the library early to give me time to get into position but also to lay out my publicity along with my wife, Christine. We’d had five posters of the cover made up, copies of the book to sell along with laminated book-marks to act as giveaways.
As we were laying all this out with my Book Elves, Miriam and Hayley, we heard a commotion outside. I asked the librarian what was causing the noise and she told me that that was coming from the people in the queue. FunniIy enough, it was about that time that I started to get really nervous.
Before the doors opened I had to go and hide myself away out the back so that I could be properly introduced. In the meantime, a number of staff who had turned up to support me were pressed into service by Hilary who lined four of them up at the front. She then asked the students to vote on which one of these did they think was THE SECRET AUTHOR. The students loved this but I was in full panic mode out the back because I couldn’t really hear what was going on. I’d probably still be waiting there now if there hadn’t been this sudden, tumultuous applause prompting me to stumble out into the light.
I thought that I knew how this would all pan out; I mean, I work with students everyday. But this was different. As soon as I appeared my wife and the Elves spun the display boards around revealing the posters before moving through the crowd circulating the bookmarks. The students were ridiculously excited by all of this, as was I. I just stood there holding up a copy of the book while they applauded. It was a great feeling and sort of vindicated all the hours of work we’ve put into it.
The bookmarks were a little project my wife had cooked up. She wanted all the students to take something away with them which would include both our web address and the title of the book. But she was also sensitive to the cost implications. In the end, after considering various options, the 60 bookmarks cost us £6.66 exactly – I know- and they really caught the student’s imagination.
Then I was into my talk. The Powerpoint didn’t work but that didn’t seem to matter. I started off by talking about how Dennis the Menace and Gnasher had gotten me into the whole reading business in the first place. The bit that I’d been dreading was reading an extract from the book but I’d chosen an early section detailing a bird attack and that seemed to go down well. After that, I started to calm down and enjoy myself. I talked a bit about how the book had come into being before opening the floor to a Q + A session. Simply put, there were two types of question: those about writing and those about self-publishing. I hadn’t expected the latter but there were lots of students who looked upon this more as a Small Business Start-Up talk than anything else. They were curious to know what sorts of percentages people like Amazon offered and more than a little shocked to learn about the sorts of deals favoured by the major publishing houses.
That left about ten minutes for signing copies. This was a bit of a bun fight with 18 books being sold on the day and another ten sold subsequently. I have no way of knowing how many were sold as e-books and, whilst there was a spike in my sales after that, it was definitely the printed copies which generated all the interest. I sold the book at £7.99 which is a £1 saving on the Amazon price. The book does look very professional and no one baulked at the price.
It was a great experience all round and generated a huge level of interest and discussion with a number of staff members going on to buy copies both for themselves and family members. This definitely impacted on my sales figures but it was just as important because it gave me a real mental boost.
None of this would have been possible without the help of the librarian: Hilary Sutton. She is extremely knowledgeable about her students and what they like to read. She was the one who orchestrated the whole Secret Author campaign and worked tirelessly behind the scenes to ensure that the event was a huge success. Personally, I can’t thank her enough.
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