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You know what I'm really grateful people are talking about today, in Author Twitter?
How hard it is to get people to come to book events. Because I was thinking it was just me.
How hard it is to get people to come to book events. Because I was thinking it was just me.
I've had not great turn-out at some events and I told myself I didn't promote them as much as I should have, but it was kind of an ego blow after conventions where I can pack a room by mentioning I'm on a panel, or how easily I can garner attention online, etc.
But seeing people with far more conventional careers and more organized publicity talking about this as just a problem with book tours makes me feel loads better.
At the same time, though, I love the idea of author events. I don't plan to stop doing them and I am very interested in attracting more of them to the Flying Camel now that I'm running bookstore operations.
But the current discourse is helping solidify some ideas I have.
But the current discourse is helping solidify some ideas I have.
Here's something I've noticed, throwing and attending events:
You get a bigger and more engaged audience if there's more than one attraction. Buddy up with another author or even better a different type of creative, like a visual artist or a musician. Put on a combined event.
You get a bigger and more engaged audience if there's more than one attraction. Buddy up with another author or even better a different type of creative, like a visual artist or a musician. Put on a combined event.
The synergy you get from working together is more than the sum of the parts. You'll get the people who would have showed up for you plus the people who would have showed up for your buddy, but more than that, you'll get people who look at the double billing and are intrigued.
You'll get people whose threshold of interest is higher than "one person doing a thing", people for whom a double bill possibly with some title registers as An Actual Event.
I've got a theory that has been percolating since the spring that I cheekily refer to as "promo 4 promo makes things real". Collaborations, cross-pollinations, shout-outs, shared billing... all these things make independent artists register as more established, more actual.
Yeah, I've noticed people who are just there for lunch get really engaged when they realize we're having an author event. I've had people who were just coming to the bar buy a book off me, too.
