How to snag an appearance at a book event
Festivals are great ways for authors to broaden their reach and build their readerships. Here are a few tips for authors looking to snag a place on panels or seminars at festivals or other book gatherings.
1. Build your hitlist. Do this in two phases: first, local: Make a list of festivals or gatherings in your area/region/state that are easy to reach and make sense for you to attend. Unless you’re a big name or a headliner, you will have to pay your own way, so have your budget in mind from the jump. Then research your list carefully. Ask yourself, are these festivals really right for you? Are they focused on your genre? Will you fit in with them, and will they fit with you? Once you’ve selected your local list, look at the nationals (and even internationals, like the Dalkey Book Festival (one day, Paddy. One day.), if you can budget for the trip). Every genre has a national/international conference. Some of them take place in the same place every year, like Thrillerfest in New York; others, like the mystery writers convention Bouchercon, move around. Ask yourself if these bigger gatherings are right for you to pitch as a panelist or speaker. Ask yourself if it’s worth the (often considerable) cost. Again, do your research, and then…
2. Write to the organizers. There are various ways to do this, depending on the festival. Some send out a call for pitches. Others are less formal, and merely have an email address on their websites. Whichever approach you take, be thoughtful and creative about what you can do for them. Suggest panel topics. Offer yourself up for a variety of roles: speaker, panelist or moderator. The more distinct and detailed you can make your pitch, and the more useful you can make yourself, the more you will appeal.
3. Make a name for yourself. Festival organizers have a network like any other. They talk to each other, and the more of this kind of panelist/speaker work that you’ve done, the more likely they are to bring you on. That’s particularly the case if you’re a generous panelist (ie, not a mic hog; if you’re passionate but succinct, and if you have interesting things to say. Start by pitching yourself to libraries, book groups and writers’ circles. The people that organize and attend those events also work on festivals. Once you’ve done a few of these events, you can refer to them in your festival pitches. It’s at the grassroots level that you make your mark.
4. Engage positively. At some point, if you put yourself out there, you will get an invite. And when you do, step into the opportunity. By this, I mean communicate clearly and quickly with Festival organizers, to all of their correspondence. And do your homework for the event: read some of your co-panelists’ work. if you’re on a panel, have a discussion with your panel moderator. They will likely have suggested this panel, and will want to get ideas from you. Finally, if you can, have a group chat with the panelists, or a gathering beforehand, to get a feel for each other, and at the very least to work out protocols: is it okay to answer questions from the audience without a moderator prompt? That kind of thing.
5. Bring your A game. At the festival itself, be absolutely the best version of yourself that you can be. Be early. Be fresh, refreshed and refreshing. Dress well. Say thank you. To everyone. Be relaxed, and tolerant of any issues that might arise. Ask how you can help. When you get to the stage, be ready to share with your fellow authors. Don’t hog the mic or the questions. Defer to the moderator. Look for opportunities to collaborate with your panelists, to make that event as fun and engaging as it can be – not for you, but for the audience. Then, after the event, do everything you can to engage with that audience, with the readers who will show up in their hundreds – sometimes thousands – to buy books, god bless ’em.
Finally, when the festival is over, write a note to the organizers, saying thanks and expressing your appreciation for everything the team did to make the event a success.
All of this will make you feel good, I promise! It will also make an impression on the organizers. It will make them remember you. And when you apply again the next year, it could well tip the scale for them when it comes to programming the event. And word will spread from there.
