Book Events for Authors and Organisers - Claire Fayers

I was standing outside Cardiff University, waiting to meet Muhammad Khan off the bus for the first ever YALit Cardiff event when my phone rang.

“I’m here,” Muhammad said. “I’m outside Debenhams.”

I looked around at the street with its distinct lack of Debenhamses or visible buses. “Um, when you say ‘here’, where exactly do you mean?”

I thought I knew what went on behind the scenes at an author event, so when my friend, Karen Bultiauw, suggested organising a YA panel in Cardiff, I eagerly agreed to help. Karen is a book publicist and has all the know-how, and I… well I thought how hard can it be?

I hadn’t imagined blisteringly hot weather and lost authors. Muhammad, it turned out, had got off the bus a town too soon. My husband made a mad dash in the car to pick him up while I ran to buy extra bottes of water for the sweltering audience and we were ready to go.

Our first event was great fun and we’re hoping to run them every quarter. As Karen is the expert on events, I’ve invited her along to answer a few questions.

Karen quizzes our panel on fantasy and contemporary fiction.

What gave you the idea for YA Lit Cardiff?

I’m a massive YA lover so I’d selfishly organised a few YA author panel events while I managed Octavo’s Book Café in Cardiff Bay. Once I became a publicist I noticed that nobody else was doing events for a teen audience. So thinking that I’d done this all before I decided to do it myself.

What’s the hardest thing about organising an event?

Getting everything and everyone agreed on the same date/place with enough of a buffer time-wise to promote the event.

For YA Lit Cardiff we really needed a central location which was a challenge. Luckily the wonderful children’s librarians are super passionate about YA and were excited for the events. Plus we have good contacts with the independent bookshops so Griffin was happy to come on board.

Considering our base in Cardiff another challenge is to get publishers to send authors to our events. Everything is organised on a voluntary basis and we wanted to keep the ticket price as low as possible to keep it accessible for teens (and to encourage them to buy books of course…).

What do you love most about author events?

I love to hear authors speak about their books. As I chair the panel events, I always read at least the newest release by each author and it’s fascinating to hear about what they loved about writing it, where their struggles were, etc.

I also love how many of the same people come to book events every time there is one in Cardiff. It’s starting to become a community which is fantastic.

Any advice for someone thinking of organising their own event?

Start at your local bookshop and see if they would like to be the venue – that way you have your book sales already sorted and probably already some kind of audience they can promote the event to.

Try to team up with other local authors to do duo events or even a panel event – asking a local book blogger to chair the event is always a good idea.

What can authors do to make sure their events go well?

A lot will depend on the genre/age category you write for but in general: have your own audience ready and be prepared for the fact that some events will be duds with barely anyone showing up.

I always tell authors that you can’t expect people to come out of the comfort of their homes for you if they haven’t at least interacted with you online or in person before. Start with events in your hometown where you have a network and then work your way out.

Always have back-up books with you – bookshops will be quite conservative when ordering in stock, especially if it’s your first event with them. I’ve had multiple events before where we ran out of books but luckily I had some from the publisher or the author had brought author copies. You can’t sell a book that’s not there…

And finally: have fun. This is your opportunity to meet readers, people who are your tribe and a fantastic author interaction can make a casual reader into a career-long supporter.

PS: This goes without saying but: take care of yourself. If face-to-face events are not something you’re up to or you have anxiety about groups, etc there are plenty of other ways to get the word out about you and your books. In my opinion online is the foundation of self-promotion for authors, everything else is the cherry on top.

The next YALit Cardiff event is on September 30th at Cardiff Central Library, when we’ll be welcoming Tracy Darnton, Katherine Webber and Savita Kalhan. They will all have special instructions to get off the bus at the right stop.