Effective Strategies on Giving Book Talks

One effective way I've found for spreading the word of my books around and selling them is to give talks at various  events and clubs.  When I first started doing this I tried having events just for my books, such as a signing at a bookstore, or at a library.  I got spoiled because it went well the first time I did it.  This was, however, a fluke.  I happened to have written about a subject that occurred in the town where I was speaking, so I had a huge turnout.  But after that, you could hear crickets chirping as I sat and waited in a bookstore for someone to give a crap.

What turned out to work much better was to find groups that were already meeting on a regular basis and who were looking for guests to speak.  Rotaries are a perfect example of this, because they meet every week, and most of them need a new guest speaker every single time.  That's a lot of slots to fill, so authors are helping them out by offering to speak, as long as it's on a topic their members are interested in hearing.

The first few times I did this, I was very nervous.  However, it became easy for me once I understood what I really needed to do; just tell the story.

You typically have only 20 minutes.  That's enough time to just tell everyone the basics of your book.  This may seem like you're giving it away and they won't want to buy it afterwards, but the trick is to not tell them any major spoilers, and to give them broad strokes.  In the case of Two Gun Hart, I'm telling the story of a man's entire life.  By giving the broad strokes of what happened, I'm basically providing a trailer for each part of his life.  By the time I'm done, the listeners feel that they've been told an entertaining story, and they get the book to fill in all the details.

This style works particularly well with nonfiction.  With fiction, it's a bit more difficult.  First of all, Rotaries are less interested in fiction.  Most of the members are interested in hearing true stories.  However, they're also interested in hearing about true facts.  If you find some that are related to your book, you can give a talk on that.  For instance, when I give talks regarding my novel The American Game, I talk about the true history of baseball, and how it coincided with the Civil War.  I then end by explaining how I integrated this history into my book.

All these methods have gone over well with attendees, and have often gotten a good number of my books sold, and the word spread about them.

My Book Tour Through The Midwest

I recently returned from a book tour I took through the several states in the center of the country.  They included Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Texas.

I was mostly speaking at Rotaries, which I've quickly learned are the best resource for public speaking about my nonfiction books.  Rotaries need new speakers every week, so they are often happy to hear from an author who has an interesting story to tell.  It's as helpful for them as it is helpful for the author.

I knew I would be traveling to Nebraska for a few weeks, so I wanted to fill my schedule as much as possible to make the trip worthwhile.  I also knew I would be going down to Texas for the Alamo City Comic Convention, so I filled as much time there as possible.

I started by going to the Rotary Club Finder: https://www.rotary.org/en/search/club-finder

Here you can enter the region and get a list of all the rotaries in that area.  I got their email addresses and wrote to all of them, telling them a quick summary of Two Gun Hart, including the website for the book, and saying when I'll be in the area and that I would like to speak at their club.  I also found the local libraries and made a similar offer.  From the responses I was able to make a schedule of appearances.  There would be 12 in all, 10 rotaries and 2 libraries, plus the convention, which is a different subject because that involves my book series Relic Worlds.

I stayed with my family in Lincoln, Nebraska and set out from there to speak in Omaha, Iowa, Kansas, and Missouri.  At these events a little under half of the people bought books, and there were usually about 15 to 20 attendees, so it was decent amounts of money.  In Texas it was hit or miss, either only one or two bought, or almost everyone bought.  Ultimately it turned out to be about the same number.

Basically, the conclusion I came to was that the sales were decent, but when you took into account the amount of time I spent arranging the talks, the flights, the car rental and gas, at best I came close to breaking even.  These were really talks to spread the word.  The problem with this is it's hard to measure it's effectiveness.  Worst of all, people forget things you told them after they leave.

So the best suggestion came from my uncle in Texas who said I should have flyers or bookmarks made up that say the name of this book and other books.  The people who bought books get to see there are others to purchase online, and those who did not buy get flyers to take with them to remind them where to buy them later.

I wish I had thought of that before, but I'll have it in mind now in future events.

Book Talks

I’ll be traveling around the Midwest and Texas in October giving talks at Rotary clubs and libraries.  I’d put the tour list here, but it’s long, and would take a lot of time for me to look up all the addresses and/or contact information, and no one goes to these events based on this blog, so I’m not going to take the time to list them now.

            Instead I’m going to talk about why I go to these clubs and give these talks.  I have found Rotary clubs, and groups like it, to be an invaluable tool for independent non-fiction promotion.  The organizers of these clubs need to find a new speaker every single week, and they’re trying to find subjects interesting enough to keep their members coming back.  Having a true story to tell is a blessing for them, as long as it’s an interesting one.  While I struggled for years to get bookstores to let me do signings, clubs that need regular speakers have been more than willing to accept me.  And some have even contacted me and asked me to come to their organization to speak, saving me the time of having to go to them.

            I haven’t been charging for these events as I want to get into as many as possible.  I make money by selling copies of my books at them, and sometimes I make a couple hundred at a single event.  It’s not enough to live on as the work required to set it up and to travel there winds up being inefficient.  However, it spreads the word of the book and of me as an author.  I often make friends and contacts who later join me on social media, and they see what else I’m writing.  Like most things in independent publishing, it pays to have a number of titles so each individual event doesn’t wind up being your only trick.

            I approach these organizations by looking them up, finding out who would be in charge of booking guests, (if I can’t find that, I just find the president or whomever is in charge,) and I email them.  I tell them what the story is and I provide a link to the web page where the information is listed.  I also mention anything that is sellable about the story.  (In the case of Two Gun Hart I tell them that it’s the first time a lot of information about the Capones has ever been revealed.)  And I make sure to mention anything that’s relevant to their area, as sometimes clubs prefer stories with a local connection.  (Oddly enough, most of the ones in Iowa wouldn’t have me as a guest unless I could show a local connection.)

            This doesn’t work so well when it comes to fiction because typically the best you can do is say you have a story you’ve made up.  The problem is, everyone has a story they’ve made up, and they don’t know why yours is extra special.  And besides, people at events like these usually want to hear about something that’s true.  They’re fascinated by true stories and will gladly invite authors with great true stories to their events.