Q: What’s the first thing an author must do once his or her book is published?
A: Go out in search of readers!
If you wrote a complete book proposal, you’ve already identified your audience and you know where they are. You even have a marketing plan in place. Presumably, the plan involves speaking engagements.
I included a section featuring public speaking tips in my book, The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book. I’ve also written several articles on various aspects of public speaking for authors. (See the links below.)
Once you read pages 260-263 in the 2007 edition of my book and study some of the articles listed below, you’ll be ready to speak. But what will you talk about? How can you create a speech that others will enjoy?
Developing a speech is much like writing an article or a book. You’re just using a different medium. You’ll be delivering it in person instead of expecting someone to read the material at some later time. You actually have more control over your audience when it’s in person. But you’re also more vulnerable. With this in mind, you’ll want to create a speech that’s entertaining, informative, helpful, useful and/or meaningful. You can entertain while teaching. You can inform in an entertaining manner. And, depending on the topic or genre of your book, you should try to incorporate both elements.
People pay more attention to a topic that is presented in an entertaining, enjoyable, clever or interesting way. Great speakers often use humor to capture audience attention even when the topic is of a serious nature.
But how do you prepare an enjoyable, entertaining, informative, meaningful speech related to your book topic or genre? Here are a few ideas:
Example 1: Your fantasy novel features bird people. Devise a costume or props depicting some of your characters. Use the props or make costume changes in order to tell the story. Ask members of the audience to come up and assist you with the story. Practice using vocal variety—lots of high tones and low ones. Make it fun and you’ll sell books.
Example 2: Your historical novel tells the story of two estranged sisters during the Civil War. You brought this story to life throughout the pages of the book. Practice bringing it to life for live audiences. It’s okay to tell the story or portions of the story. People will still want to read the book. I sometimes wear period clothes when I’m promoting my local history book and I share the history as if I was living it.
Example 3: Yours is a book about recovery. Find ways to help your audience relate to your story. You might draw them in by telling part of your personal story of addiction, injury, abuse or illness. And then try to make the recovery aspect more universal, if possible. The more people who can relate to the recovery process, the more copies of the book you will sell. It’s okay, in fact, it’s important, to evoke emotion.
Example 4: Your memoir reveals hardships and little-known facts about a period in history. Audiences would probably enjoy a chronological narrative that weaves your experiences into interesting historical events (or vice versa). Learn how to present your talk using intrigue and an element of surprise. The greatest challenge in this kind of speech is the dull factor. Choose material that is interesting, funny, mysterious, shocking—something designed to touch members of the audience. And then use emotion in your presentation. Make someone feel sad, happy, thankful, inspired, fearful or at peace as a result of your story and they will be more inclined to buy your book.
Example 5: Your book tells how to grow a critter-safe garden. Give demonstrations. Use a PowerPoint presentation. Provide handouts. You are the expert. You know what the burning questions are. Respond to those questions.
In fact, no matter the topic or genre of your book, use customer feedback to help develop future programs. If a lot of readers comment on the how intrigued they were by the return of the faithful cat or how they could relate to the impish qualities of the younger brother, feature them in your talks. The question I hear most often is, “I just finished a book, how do I go about getting it published?†So this is the focus of my presentations.
For more information about how to develop as a public speaker, follow these links to my articles:
You’ll find the following articles at my Web site: http://www.matilijapress.com/articles.htm
How Do You Get All of Those Speaking Gigs?
Tips for Becoming More Media Worthy.
Find some of my additional speaking-related articles posted at Writing-World.com
Promote your Book Through Alternative Speaking Venues
http://www.writing-world.com/promotion/venues.shtml
When Authors Engage in Public Speaking
http://www.writing-world.com/promotion/pubspeaking.shtml
Read these articles posted at the PMA website:
To Be a Better Public Speaker
http://www.pma-online.org/articles/shownews.aspx?id=2514
My Path to More Successful Public Speaking
http://www.pma-online.org/articles.shownews.aspx?id=2372
And remember, The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book contains everything you want or need to know about the publishing process. Order your copy of the new, bigger, better, revised edition NOW http://www.matilijapress.com/rightway.html And jumpstart your publishing project by purchasing the accompanying Author’s Workbook http://www.matilijapress.com/workbook.html