Libraries LOVE booking authors.
The word “book” is right in there!
But I have seen a lot of libraries, especially committees within libraries, make some pretty simple missteps in the author booking process. So let’s go over some of these so you can avoid the same pitfalls (I love the word “pitfall” for these because it reminds me of renting Super Pitfall for the NES, which was, itself, a pitfall).
Let’s Get The Money Out of the Way
Look…you should expect to pay an author, and you should expect to pay what they’re worth.
You shouldn’t approach an author with a “We ARE a public library, in the public services realm, so perhaps you can offer us a discount?”
Isn’t it funny that we do that to authors and other artists all the time, but we’d never do that to, I don’t know, Starbucks. “One large coffee, and just in case it does anything for me, price-wise, I AM a librarian.” We don’t do it when a technician comes to fix the elevator.
Besides, they KNOW you’re a library, right? Doesn’t it indicate somewhere on your email that you’re a library representative?
My advice on this is to just be very upfront about what you have and what you’re willing to pay. Just straight-up let them know, “We have a budget of X for honorarium plus expenses.”
It’s been my experience that authors, on the whole, are firm, but fair. They know what their time and energy is worth, and they’ll ask for that, but they aren’t going to try and take advantage of you. They are looking to get paid what they’re worth, but not looking to take you for everything you’ve got.
Not to mention, your event budget is what you have to spend! Don’t set an event budget so high that you can’t bring yourself to spend it. Don’t set a budget at a level that makes you regret doing the event, regardless of how successful it is.
If you’re concerned about an author being a trickster, contact some other places the author you’re booking has visited. See what they charged. Go in with a similar offer.
The Emotional Side of the Money Thing
We asked an author about a quote for a visit, and what we heard back was a nice, pleasant, version of, “This author doesn’t really get on a plane for less than $20k, which is way over your budget.”
I think it’d be easy to balk at that and to…kinda come to hate that author for being so greedy. But that’d be extremely unfair.
When I look at that particular author, they would’ve been coming from outside the country, a pretty big effort, and that’d require blocking off a pretty significant chunk of time. That author was big enough that if you consider their normal working habits and set of opportunities, they could likely take on any number of projects that would net $20,000 in a week and wouldn’t require leaving the house.
And visits, lectures, and other things ARE work. Sometimes we forget that, but it’s like going to see a band: The best bands at least create the illusion that they are having a blast every second they’re on stage, but as an adult, you KNOW that touring is not a non-stop goodtime extravaganza. It’s work! Attending concerts is super fun, putting them on is a job.
The author has to deliver on the promised event, the author has to be “on” for long stretches, the author is not in their normal environment or circumstances. These are work duties, even if they superficially appear fun, even if the author appears easygoing and to be enjoying their time.
I once read an author’s blog/letter/whatever about doing school visits, and the author made the point that while these were very fulfilling, if they did even a fraction of the requested visits, that’s all the author would do anymore. And that’s not what the author wanted to do, the author wanted to write more books. This author set their visit fees fairly high because they honestly didn’t want to do a lot of visits, but for a certain price, could not turn it down.
I mean, so many libraries have paid some bullshit consultant that much to do stupid nonsense anyway. We never view them as greedy and unreasonable, and it’s because those fees are industry standard.
Overall, I think artists are mostly underpaid, and so we’re not used to anyone in that realm commanding a reasonable fee. Get used to it.
Initial Contacts
Way before your event date, make a list of 15 or so authors, all of different tiers of notoriety (which will likely correlate with price), and contact the lot of them. Let them know you’re looking to book an author for an approximate date, and that you’re making initial contact to get pricing and any other info that might be relevant. Make it clear that you and your team will make decisions based on this info, and you’re not making a firm offer or expecting anyone to completely block off the dates at this time.
DON’T GO ONE AUTHOR AT A TIME. It can take a long time for an author to get back to you, and while you’re waiting, you can ask another author and another.
Think about it like applying for jobs when you desperately need a gig. Do you apply for one thing, play it out, and see how it goes, or do you apply for multiple things and speed up the process that way?
For a brief checklist of things to ask:
Price
Availability during an approximate window
Travel restrictions or special needs (some authors will only stay at 4-star hotels, some require first class travel, some people of size will require larger seating on airlines).
If there are any special things you want for the event, like classroom visits, ask whether the author is comfortable and able to do those sorts of things.
Don’t Add On Extras
The booking agreement should include ALL of the things you expect the author to do.
Two weeks before the event, you shouldn’t be saying, “We thought that while you were here, you could stop by our local bookstore and do a signing.”
Don’t add on school visits, library visits, photo ops—don’t add anything that wasn’t agreed upon and expect that to be part of the deal. Don’t spend your time or the event committee’s time with anything like, “I was thinking, maybe we could also…” once that booking agreement is signed.
If you bring a plumber to your house to fix the kitchen sink, you can certainly ask them to take a look at a toilet as well, but you can bet they’re going to charge you for it.
Don’t Shape The Event Too Hard
I’ve been part of author events where the team of library staff members REALLY overshaped the event.
Once, this involved bringing in an author who was fairly lighthearted, a fun speaker, and demanding of him that he talk about some very serious topics.
Don’t. Do. That.
The result was an event that was pretty fun, then took a noticeable nosedive when the author was going into the mandatory portion of the event. Because that wasn’t his thing!
You’re paying someone a good chunk of money to come and do their thing, so let them do their thing! Don’t force them into a tiny little box, don’t make them do YOUR thing.
If people wanted your thing, we’d be booking you. I know, that’s harsh, but it’s true.
What Name Recognition Does
I’ve always said that if we booked Stephen King, we could take it pretty easy on the marketing budget because a Times New Roman, text-only flyer that we stapled to any wooden poles in town would be enough to sell out the event three times over.
But if you’re not booking Stephen King, consider what you can do to up the ante for the event and perhaps bring in people who wouldn’t attend an author event otherwise.
You might be able to get someone less expensive if they’re connected to something else that’s happening in the world, especially if you can book someone who is not necessarily huge in the world of books.
Book a comedian who has a memoir and who is also going on tour, book someone who writes about food. That way, you attract fans of other things besides books, which you might need to do if your author isn’t a huge name.
All of this to say: You need to adjust your expectations based on who you book. If you book Neil Gaiman, you’re all set, no need to do a ton of work (by the way, when you book a gigantic author like that, don’t waste the money printing up a bunch of bookmarks and stuff, you’ll sell out fast).
If you book someone who’s great but doesn’t have 14 different TV series based on their books, you might have to work a little harder to build up and sell the event, and even if you do a great job, you might not fill a concert hall.
Another Word on Selection
We had a really successful event with Diana Gabaldon, partially because the Outlander TV show had recently aired, and, I think, partially because Gabaldon fans are diehards.
In October last year, I went to a Chuck Palahniuk signing. It went from pretty early in the day into the evening, and there was a line THE ENTIRE TIME. I’m talking like 8 hours of a full-ass line (now, granted, Palahniuk spent a couple minutes with each person, signing, chatting, and taking pictures). People brought old books, new books. Tons of people there were wearing t-shirts based on Palahniuk’s books.
Again, there is a good selection of diehards.
What I’m getting at here is that you can moneyball the author event system by picking authors that may not be absolutely enormous, but that have a super solid, super invested fanbase.
When you bring a Palahniuk or Gabaldon or Craig Johnson, people will drive a ways to see them. You’ll have a much easier time packing the event because, although not every person in town is going to be there, every fan within 100 miles WILL.
What Are They Good For?
Book an author who’s a good speaker or performer. Watch YouTube videos of the person, listen to their podcast appearances, and evaluate whether this is someone who connects with audiences or not.
Remember, you’re booking a performer, a speaker, not someone to sit in a room alone and write a book for you.
Some authors are good speakers, some aren’t. I would advise not booking authors who are not good speakers.
What You Don’t Need to Control
I worked several author events where the library staff was like, “We can’t do live Q&A, what if someone asks something inappropriate or just shouts racial slurs into the microphone or something!?”
Look, y’all, this is theoretically possible and extremely unlikely.
You take the fun out of the event when you force people to submit their questions ahead of time. People like to ask the author directly because it’s like a brief interaction with this person they came out to see.
Control the crowd. Control the quality of the audio and visuals. You probably don’t need to hire a whole crew of huge dudes in tight black t-shirts, but you SHOULD have someone at least prepared to help if someone gets aggressive or is approaching the author to make physical contact in an inappropriate way.
Control the things that are definitely going to require some control, but don’t try to control the things that are fun precisely because there’s some spontaneity.
Are You The Right Person to Run Author Events?
I have a pretty simple way to evaluate this: Have you BEEN to an author event, by choice, in the last two years?
Not for work, not as part of a conference, but a standalone author event where you went, heard a reading, watched a Q&A, and did the damn thing?
Because if you haven’t…why are you throwing one?
You don’t have to be a number one superfan of a particular author to book them and run a successful event, but I think you have to be a fan of the event type in order to do this well.
The problem isn’t that you’re stupid or don’t know how to plan events, the problem is that you don’t understand the audience, and you don’t understand the appeal of events like this. You don’t know why people come to author events. You don’t know what typically happens.
And, in my experience, you probably have an outsized idea of what success looks like.
I’ve been to many readings for mid-tier authors (in terms of mainstream popularity), and there might be a couple dozen people in the room. This is typical. This is what will most likely happen.
Which isn’t to say that your event has to be a cookie cutter author event, but I think this is one of those situations where it’s good to know the rules before you start breaking them.
If you find yourself running an author event, and you’ve never been to one, get to some RIGHT AWAY. Watch them online, and commit to watching THE WHOLE THING while not doing other things. Learn, observe the audience, figure out what’s enjoyable about the whole thing, figure out what’s unique about these experiences that you want to emphasize.
Don’t Make It Homework
One of the last author events I worked for my library, the organizers added in a ton of homework.
Participants were supposed to fill out surveys, like three different kinds. They were supposed to do some kind of craft-y activity. They were supposed to submit questions on a form beforehand instead of asking questions live. Attendees were expected to consider the event and then describe how this was going to change their lives and put them on a better path.
Guys, sometimes people want to come to a thing, sit in a room, and not have to do a lot of heavy lifting. When you’re selling tickets, when they’re coming on an evening or a weekend, making attendees do a bunch of work makes the event worse, not better.
I’ve never filled out a fucking survey after going to see a metal band.
Great column. I've done a few author events and agree with everything here.
The author event I most regret is when I worked with Gene Yang (of American Born Chinese). He was so nice and responsive and I was just starting out as a librarian. I promoted it like crazy (I remember at the schools there was some hostility to promoting a graphic novel book and author among the teachers, most people didn't seem to "get" the achievement of American Born Chinese) and still only a few people came, and a very nice lady asked some embarrassing questions about the book. Yang was awesome throughout and even inspired one of my nephews on his own career as an artist.
It was such an honor to have him at my library, I've always regretted not having an event that lived up to his work and his kindness.