A Beginner’s Guide to Public Speaking

I just returned from my first book tour around the South Island.  Though it’s too early to see whether sales have been affected, I can say the tour was a resounding success.

Here are the benefits of holding an author talk in front of classes:

• Your name will be on the teachers’ and students’ radar.  If they see your book at a bookstore, they’re more likely to pick it up, and kids are likely to tell their parents about the author they saw at school that day.
• Bookstores* can’t refuse your book (*see the bookstores post for exceptions)
• You feel famous!  Everyone wants to know everything about you, and you might even get to autograph a few pages.
• Schools will almost invariably buy a copy for their library.

As I mentioned before, I’m not a fan of public speaking.  After reading multiple marketing books that went on and on about how presentations can boost your sales and audience, I figured I would be missing out if I never gave it a try.  So, with some reluctance (I waited until the very last minute) I began contacting schools and asking whether they would be willing to host me for an author presentation.  I promised I would talk to the kids about reading and writing.

To my shock, the first school responded not thirty minutes after I had emailed them, saying they would love to have me come in.  More schools followed suit, and just two days later I had 8 schools in 5 different towns lined up.  I actually had to turn a couple down since I didn’t have enough time in each day!

I was very nervous in the week leading up to the tour.  I wished I had waited until later to arrange this; I was woefully unprepared, with nothing but the vaguest of presentation ideas gathered.

On the first day, my partner joined me in both school visits, filling in the gaps whenever I couldn’t think of what to say next.  I learned then that talking to the locals is the best strategy possible to get your book into bookstores.  After all, what bookstore is going to refuse to carry your book when you come up and say, “I just spoke to 100 kids in the area.  I’m running a big competition, and kids have to buy my book to enter.  Would you mind taking a few copies?”

I really got the hang of this public-speaking thing on the second day.  The morning started off with a full-school assembly of 150 kids, something I had been dreading, but I spoke flawlessly and confidently.  In fact, I found the larger my audience, the better my presentation.  I suppose I have something of a hidden talent for speaking to classes.

After that I was talking to classes on my own.  High schools were the worst–17-year-olds just sit and stare at you, not reacting in the slightest, and god forbid they ask a question in front of their peers!

Now that I’ve returned home, it’s time to tackle the local schools (of which there are 152).  Surprisingly enough, I look forward to speaking at more schools.  But here are a few things I wish I had known before I started the tour:

• You’ll never feel prepared for your first public speaking engagement.  Sometimes it’s better just to jump in and see what happens.
• Kids aged 7-13 LOVE asking questions.  It’s much easier and less intimidating to structure a presentation around questions and audience engagement.
• Know your ideal audience.  Now that I know which students I should target (kids ages 8-13), I won’t be pursuing high schools or very young classes.  The most exciting, valuable talks were with kids in that age range.
• Let the audience dictate the presentation.  If the kids are asking valuable questions, spend most of your time answering them.  If they’re restless, tell a funny story.  And if they’re much older or much younger than you anticipated, have different versions of the presentation prepared to suit their level.

The most valuable result of this tour, by far, was exposure.  Before this, perhaps 300 people knew my name, and most of them were facebook friends who never cared about my book to begin with.  Now, I’ve spoken with 500 students, not to mention their teachers and librarians, and my book is in 13 bookstores and 8 school libraries.  If I can gain that sort of exposure in just three days, imagine what I could achieve over the next 6 months!

Gearing up for the South Island book tour!

I promised a post about bookstores last week, so that will be up in the next few days.  For now, though, it’s all hands on deck in preparation for our South Island book tour!

Given that we have limited time, it’s actually not the entire South Island–just the top half.  But we’ll have our hands full with that!

There are two main purposes for our book tour:

1. visiting bookstores
2. talking to schools.

The reason for bookstores is obvious–as I mentioned previously, even the main bookstore chain in New Zealand (Paper Plus) is locally owned in each town, so you have to go to each store directly to get your book on shelves.

And as for the schools, we’re hosting a major prize to get students reading.  It’s called the “Extreme Reading” competition–students take a photo of themselves reading The Natural Order in a crazy location or creative pose, and the winner gets an adventure trip to Queenstown for themselves and a parent or friend.

The book tour plans started out small…but within fifteen minutes of contacting schools, many of them were already replying to say they would love to have me come speak to their students.

(Cue the moment of sudden panic as I remember how much I dislike public speaking…)

I now have 8 schools lined up, in towns all around the top of the South Island: Kaikoura, Nelson, Richmond, Westport, and Greymouth.  And if any more start responding, I might have to turn them down!  I definitely hadn’t expected such enthusiasm.

And my goals for the book tour?  

• I would be thrilled if we could sell the rest of our initial set of 200 books
• Hopefully most of the bookstores will agree to take on The Natural Order–it could mean another 9 bookstores on top of the 6 it’s already at
• And most of all, if I can get kids excited about the competition and posting “extreme reading” photos all over Facebook and Instagram and Twitter and what-have-you, that will give the book the publicity boost it needs

One final announcement 

It’s official: my website domain name has transferred, so rjvickers.com is now my real author website!   Check it out–I have a list of bookstores where you can find The Natural Order, a Q&A with the author, and the longest bio you’ll probably find anywhere on the internet.  Details of the “extreme reading” competition will be coming soon!

Until next time,

R.J. Vickers

Musings on the Eve of Publication

The Natural Order is officially released tomorrow.

I’ve come so far, yet I still have so far to go.  That’s a reassuring thing, in a way.  If I’d had just one plan or goal for publication, I would see that plan to completion…and then freeze.  What if that plan didn’t work?  What if it resulted in me selling all of 10 copies?  Would I give up, call this book a failure, and move on?

Even when this whole marketing deal starts to seem a bit overwhelming, I’m grateful for it.  The way I’m doing things now–throwing hundreds of darts at the wall and seeing which ones stick–I won’t be left directionless.  Even if a simple thing like submitting the book for review generates ten more tasks (signing up for a Goodreads account, making a Goodreads page, begging my early readers to post just one review, converting the book to a Mobi file, writing up a short blurb, etc.), every step I take is one that will serve me in the future.  Maybe it was annoying that I couldn’t submit to one of these bloggers until I had a Goodreads page, but I needed one anyway, so that was the nudge to get it done now.

The more I do, the more I realize how much remains to be done.

Between the release of the book and the book launch party, I’ll be inviting absolutely everyone to the party (we just visited the farmers’ market to invite vendors the other day, since they used to be associated with my cafe) and hopefully scaring up some media attention for the event.  If I could get just one journalist or reporter to attend, that would be fantastic.

After that, the real marketing slog begins.

My partner’s mother self-published a book years ago, and hers was a story of incredible success born from a great talent for marketing yet very little know-how.  She wrote a book that filled a gap in the market (a cookbook specifically aimed at teaching maids how to cook for their families–among expats living in Singapore at the time, it was a common complaint that their maids were both unsanitary and inexperienced in the kitchen).  Once published, she singlehandedly got the book into a whole host of stores frequented by expats, including a major cold-storage chain that a publisher had been trying to crack for years.

One of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned from her is that there’s no such  thing as aiming too high.  You might as well try everything, because there’s always a chance something highly unlikely might work out.

So far, I’ve had incredible success with New Zealand bookstores.

It seems that every bookstore owner I’ve spoken to is eager to support a local author, and willing to take my books on the spot.  I currently have physical copies of the book in two stores, with two more waiting for me to drop off copies and another three in the works.  And I haven’t been turned down outright by a single bookstore.

That gives me the courage to try for larger chains, including Whitcoulls (a stationary/book shop that mostly features Top 100 titles) and the Warehouse (a department store with a decent book selection).

And after that?  I’ll start visiting schools.

That’s part of the book tour I’ve mentioned briefly in the past.  My partner and I are hoping to drive all around the South Island, visiting bookstores in every town we come across, and stopping at schools to donate a book to their library.  When we do that, we’re hoping to leave a stack of bookmarks for kids to pick up if they’re interested.  That way they can learn more about the book…and grab a copy from their local bookstore.

Regardless of what succeeds and what fails, I have an endless list of directions to pursue.  Book publishing is not a single event–it’s a journey that can last (now that books are available online and print-on-demand) pretty much as long as you keep working at it.

On that note, here’s to the end of the pre-publication journey–and the start of an entirely new venture.

See you on the other side!

So many tasks, so little time!

It is now three days before the release of The Natural Order!!  I started working on this project two months ago, and the time since then has gone by unerringly fast.

Once the book has come out, I’ll change modes: I’ll begin to report what has worked and what hasn’t worked in the realm of marketing.  You’ll hear about the book launch party, the book tour, whether I’ve been able to get the book into any local bookstores, and how my other attention-getting pursuits have panned out.

Oh, and I’ll let you know how many crocheted animals I end up making!

Remember, if you comment before August 31st, you could win a stuffed animal of your choice.  (1 in every 5 comments wins)

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And the process…

For all of you who are curious, this is what the lead-up to a book release looks like:

• Ordering copies of the book.  I’ve ordered 200 copies, which will hopefully be enough for the book launch party and a subsequent book tour.  I would be thrilled if they sold out, though!  Shipping to New Zealand is extremely expensive, especially when they add the customs tax, so I’ll be planning very carefully before I order another shipment of books.

• Planning the book launch party.  The party is now listed on Eventfinda, and I’ve printed out a set of party-invite cards that I’m giving out to absolutely everyone.  I’ve been inviting my coworkers (from the cafe where the party will be hosted), the regulars from the cafe, and the staff at the local bookstore (I also left a stack of invites next to their till, for customers who are interested).  I’m hoping to visit a couple more bookstores and the farmers’ market before the date of the launch party

• Submitting the book to bloggers.  There are 238 bloggers who read and post reviews of self-published books, so I’ve been going through the list and submitting mine to everyone who accepts YA fantasy.  Unfortunately some of the most popular and well-suited sites are closed for submissions, given a backlog of TBR (to-be-read) books, but it’s still an exciting chance to get the word out.

• Requesting reviews.  I’m hoping to have 10 reviews up on Amazon before June 1st, though this seems unlikely (I’m currently at 3 reviews).

• Submitting the book to local bookstores.  Christchurch has one local bookstore, Scorpio Books, and the owners are very friendly and willing to check out The Natural Order.  As soon as the shipment of books arrives, I’ll bring one straight over to them so they can read it and make their decision.  I’ll also be trying for a spot at Boulder Bookstore, my favorite local bookstore ever (in my hometown), though this one is a bit trickier since I can’t present the book myself.

Now I’m just crossing my fingers that the books arrive in one piece!  It will be a very exciting journey from here on…

Countdown…15 days to publication!

As I sit here with just 15 days left until the release of The Natural Order, I can’t help thinking of everything I still have to do.  So this post will serve as a bit of an inventory: things I’ve finished, things I’ve started, and things I haven’t even touched yet.

It will give you a bit of an overview of my marketing scheme so far, and of course, if you have any further suggestions of something I have missed, I would love to hear in the comments below!

Things I’ve done: 

• Finished the final read-through of The Natural Order, correcting all of the typos that somehow got ignored in the past (I’m a stickler for proper grammar, so I don’t let much slip!)
• Designed the cover
• Set up my website (though some of the pages are still incomplete)

Things I’ve started: 

• The blog!  I’ve been more consistent with this than I expected, though I don’t know how long it will take to see results (such as an expanded readership).
• Getting the book ready for online release.  I’ll work on formatting it for Kindle tomorrow.
• Spreading word to everyone I know.

Things I haven’t even touched: 

• The book tour.  I’ve been putting this off, so expect updates sometime in the next week when I finally get around to planning it.
• The book launch party.  I still have to pin down the date, so I can’t decide any specifics until then.
• My author brand.  I need to decide on one, but I’m having trouble coming up with anything specific.  (Suggestions welcome!!)
• Most of the extra pages on my website.  I have to work on an author Q&A, a sales page, and several other book tie-in pages.

The most exciting news, though, is that I’ll be ordering my first set of copies tomorrow!  They won’t arrive by the official release date, but I definitely need them before the book launch party.  If you have any questions you want answered in my first Q&A page on the author website, let me know in the comments below.

Is Anyone Listening? Public speaking as a (sneaky) way to sell your book

I’ve been reading Rob Eagar’s Sell Your Book like Wildfire, and one of his chapters is all about how valuable public speaking opportunities are—both for your book sales and for your career as a writer.  He was very persuasive!  Unfortunately, most of the speaking opportunities he described are related to nonfiction books.

You see, the whole reason someone will book you as a speaker is because you can provide value.  Talking about the fact that you just published a book, and isn’t that great!, and you should buy it!—that’s not value.

It’s easy to see why nonfiction authors can demonstrate value.  Maybe they’ve written a self-help book, and they can teach the audience some of the lessons included in the book.  Maybe they’re a relationship coach, and they can help people with their struggling relationships.  Or maybe they’re a food writer who can give a cooking demo.

Fiction authors have a much harder time with this.  I was completely stumped, until recently.  The Natural Order is a YA novel, so it’s aimed at middle school and high school students.  What on earth could I talk about that would interest them?

Then my partner and I got to talking. 

We’re hoping someday to do the Te Araroa, which is a hike that runs the length of New Zealand, and while we’re hiking, he wants to stop at schools along the way and give wilderness first-aid talks to the kids.  See, we’re both big hikers, and on top of a paramedic and nursing degree, he used to be part of the ski patrol in Montana.  Plus, he was a firefighter.

Kids love that sort of thing.

As it turns out, The Natural Order is set in the Canadian wilderness, and the characters occasionally have to survive disasters of their own—the same sort of things you would talk about in a wilderness first-aid class.  Things like avalanches (especially a problem in New Zealand, with the extremely steep mountains!), hypothermia, and getting lost in the woods.

My partner could do a wilderness first-aid talk for middle-schoolers and high-schoolers, and reference The Natural Order for examples of situations that you could find yourself in while hiking in the woods!

Perfect.  It’s useful for teachers, fun for kids, and not obviously a sales ploy.

We’ll give it a try in mid-June (it’s winter here in New Zealand, so they won’t be on summer break), shortly after the book has been released, and see if it generates any results!