Category Archives: events

This refers to types of events including school visits, school assemblies and appearances at bookstores, libraries, conferences, festivals, family nights, literacy nights, banquets

Book Love During Read Across America Month and Beyond!

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Berylwood - Laurie Cariker. & MPR BooksLaurie Cariker, Literacy Coach at Berylwood Elementary School in Simi Valley, California, knows that to grow readers, you need to get books into their hands.

For Berylwood’s big kick-off for Read Across America month, Laurie throws open the doors of the multipurpose room where kids trade vouchers for books that she has collected all year long from donors. As an author who visits lots of schools, believe me when I say that there is a happy vibe on the campus of this Title 1 school!Berylwood - Book Exchange Banner

But March isn’t the only month dedicated to Book Love at Berylwood – it’s books all year through. On Tuesdays, book carts are rolled out in the morning — one cart with books in Spanish, the other cart with books in English. Parents can choose up to 10 books to take home from the Tuesday Morning Lending Library. They take library cards from inside the books, put them in an envelope that has their name and phone number on it, and slide their cache into a bag with their name on a tag. They return the books in the bag when they are done with that batch.

Berylwood - Library card - Tues Morning Lending Library   Berylwood - Book bag - Tues Morning Lending Library  Berylwood - Tags - Tues Morning Lending Library

And to top this all off, the Berylwood Elementary School just dedicated a Reading Oasis Room for kids and their families.  The room was created through a partnership with Scholastic Book Fairs and the Simi Valley branch of Kiwanis International who work with school principals to provide at-risk students with access to books and a safe environment to read with their families.

Berylwood - Alexis & Laurie Cariker2

Alexis O’Neill and Laurie Cariker in the new Reading Oasis Room at Berylwood Elementary School

 

Sending lots of Book Love to Berylwood, schools and the creators of books for children this month!

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To Authors & illustrators — have you visited schools during Read Across America that have celebrated books in a fun way? Send me a photo and I’ll give them a shout-out this month: info2@schoolvisitexperts.com

 

Authors on Stage: Picking Up Performance Tips

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LOGO - WNY ChBookExpo - MonkeySeeAre you working on a new presentation? Or perhaps trying to beef up an old one? One of the best ways to get fresh ideas is to see authors and illustrators in action. And festival showcases are a perfect way to see many all in one spot in a single day.

Case in point: on Saturday, November 14, 2015 from 10:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m., over 30 authors and illustrators are appearing at the first-ever Western New York Children’s Book Expo at Kleinhans Music Hall in Buffalo, New York. (And, full disclosure, I will be among them, doing a presentation from 12:30 – 12:45 p.m. at the Buffalo News Literacy Corner, and signing books all day, so stop by!)

Because a festival crowd is fluid and multi-age, the showcases are only 15 minutes long. By observing authors, you’ll pick up tips on how they open, what they focus on, how they engage the audience, and how they wrap up in such a short amount of time.

This extravaganza is being organized by Kim Krug and Kathleen Skoog and their team at Monkey See, Monkey Do…Children’s Bookstore of Clarence, NY. In 2012, the store received the Women’s National Book Association (WNBA) Pannell Award, given out to recognize and publicly applaud the work of booksellers who stimulate, promote and encourage children’s and young people’s interest in books. Then in December 2014, author and philanthropist James Patterson gifted Monkey See, Monkey Do…Children’s Bookstore with seed money that started things rolling, and local businesses are helping to bring this to the public for FREE.

For more information on the WNY Children’s Book Expo (location, schedule, book pre-order discounts) click here.

For a downloadable flier, click here. Pass it along to your friends in Western New York!

A Vibrant Author Visit Partnership: Giffen Memorial Elementary School & First Presbyterian Church of Albany

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00-Giffen Author DAy - ListeningtoRoseKentFor years, various writing projects brought me to the New York State Museum on Madison Avenue in Albany, New York. Not once had I taken a left-hand turn onto Pearl Street on my way up the hill to the library. If I had, I would have bumped smack into Giffen Memorial Elementary School, a Title 1 school that is the largest in the city.  Even still, from the outside, I wouldn’t have known Giffen’s juicy surprise: that it hosts a vibrant annual author visit program through a community partnership initiated by the First Presbyterian Church of Albany, New York.

I found out about this program by accident when Debra Fagans, Chairperson of Author/Illustrator Day, contacted me via email, asking if I’d be willing to promote the event scheduled for April 2015. I said I’d not only promote it, but that I’d love to be a part of it. I was delighted to be included with Katherine Paterson, James Earl Ransome and Lesa Cline-Ransome as a visiting author at their third annual event.

Bottom line: I traveled to Albany, had a blast, and was really impressed with this program. Why?
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How Can You Entice Teens to Your Library Programs?

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Certificate of Attendance273Here’s the issue. You’ve been invited to do a talk at a local public library. You know that the library will promote through their usual channels. But if you’re not a middle grade or YA star author, attendance can be all over the map, with nothing guaranteed. So what carrot can you have the library offer to motivate an audience to show up? The answer is credit. From teachers. For attending your event.

I’ve seen this in action at my local library. Our Friends of the Library group sponsored a program called, “Shakespeare in Song: Songs & Sonnets Celebrating the Bard” created and performed by William Clark. They knew adults would show up, but they wanted to attract a younger audience, too. To motivate students,  the Friends of the Library sent a notice to all English teachers in local middle schools and high schools that announced the program and (here’s the key) suggested that teachers offer a homework pass to any student who showed up. The library created a form to certify attendance that was signed by a volunteer at the event, and the student was given a program as extra proof of having been there.

The result? A Standing-Room-Only crowd filled with students.
Why not suggest this kind of partnership the next time you do a library gig? It’s a winning situation for you, the library and, most importantly, the kids who come to meet you.

Tense About School Visits? You Don’t Have to Do Them

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Get out of Jail Free3Are you the kind of author or illustrator who finds doing school visits to be excruciatingly painful? You don’t enjoy being on-stage during assemblies. You’re exhausted thinking of the energy it takes to be social off-stage with school personnel. You need lots of quiet time. But when you published your first book, someone told you that to be a children’s book author, you have to do school visits.

Well, I’m about to give you your “Get out of Jail Free” card:

• It is perfectly okay to never, ever do a public appearance.
• It is perfectly okay to take a break from doing appearances.
• And it is perfectly okay to focus all your energies on creating your next book.

It’s true that there are lots of benefits of doing school visits – connecting with readers, selling books, earning extra income. But if this causes more pain than pleasure, don’t do them.

So let’s back up a bit. Why are you a reluctant presenter? It’s possible that you are a true introvert. However, it could be that other circumstances are making you hesitant to do appearances. Here are five major challenges and solutions to think about:

Challenge: Family Obligations
Situation: Your kids may still in school, or your aging parents need attention. Schedules are crazy, and it’s difficult to justify time away from home. You want to squeeze out every moment of togetherness with you family while you can, and still write more books.
Solution: Limit appearances to within driving distance of your home. Do half-days (mornings only) so you can still pick up your kids at school. For appearances further away, consider doing virtual school visits via Skype, teleconferences or e-mail interviews. Map out days within a month that you will be available to do schools, and schedule all within that time frame

Challenge: Job Juggle
Situation: You are employed at another job to pay the bills consistently. Your time-off is limited.
Solution: Give your new books a big push at launch time, then ease off.  If your family doesn’t mind, use vacation days for big events. Check with your employer about flex-time and trade evening or weekend hours for a day when schools are in session.

Challenge: Fear
Situation: You hate to ____ (fill in the blank with your own travel nightmare i.e. fly, drive, pack, etc.) and will do anything to avoid it.
Solution: If you fear flying but want to travel, either plan enough time for taking a train or bus, hire a driver, or enroll in a program such as www.gogetterjetsetter.com. For fear of packing (the thing I not so much fear as hate to do), check out www.onebag.com.

Challenge: Lack of Skill or Experience
Situation: You like the idea of doing school visits, but don’t know what to do for a program. Or you’re worried that the kids will get out of control
Solution: You’re in luck. Go to past blog posts on SchoolVisitExperts.com for advice. (You’re reading one now!) Read my columns, “The Truth About School Visits” (past and present) in the SCBWI Bulletin. Also, observe authors and illustrators in action at schools, libraries and bookstores. Join in supportive discussions about appearances on your local SCBWI listservs. Start with small events and work up to bigger ones.

Challenge: Shyness
Situation: Okay — so some of you would rather chew rats than stand in front of an audience.
Solution: There’s really no “solution” for being shy.  It’s just who you are. But you’ve managed to cope all these years in social situations.  And what you’re calling “shyness” may be just a lack of confidence.  Introverts will find comfort in the posts at http://shrinkingvioletpromotions.blogspot.com/ . But if you would like to bolster your confidence, consider joining a local chapter of Toastmasters, the organization of choice for many shy authors, and you will amaze yourself with the strategies you’ll learn to become an engaging speaker.

Remember — if you’re invited to speak, it’s because a school admires your books as well as you, the creator. While you can politely decline invitations, you might give some thought about what’s standing in the way of your accepting their offer. And if you can find a way to meet your fans, it will extend the life of the books you’re creating.

Podcast: Evergreen School Visit Advice

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Brain Burps About Books - LogoGrab your earbuds and turn up your speakers for some “evergreen” school visit advice. This is an interview that the one-and-only Katie Davis did with me on her podcast, Brain Burps About Books.  Katie is a writer, an illustrator, and a video marketing maven (her description — and it’s true!) Her podcasts include interviews with publishing industry leaders on the creation, promotion and writing of children’s books.

This interview is an hour long. In case your time is short and you want to jump to the bits that are of greatest interest to you, I’ve provided a list of topics we discussed and approximate times in the podcast they appear (minutes & seconds).
Episode #31: School Visit Questions with Expert Alexis O’Neill

00:00  General announcements
05:54 Introduction of Alexis O’Neill, SchoolVisitExperts.com
08:00 Importance of authors being compensated for work
09:01 Surprising world of school visits following publication
09:30 Selling vs giving. Expertise & intent
13:54 AUDIENCE QUESTION: What’s the best way to get school visits?
17:48 Fees & discounts
28:53 AUDIENCE QUESTION: Crowd control. How do you deal with loud, noisy assemblies? How do you get their attention and respect in a humorous way?
35:45 AUDIENCE QUESTION: How can I connect with schools? Mailings fall flat. Other suggestions?
42:18 AUDIENCE QUESTION: How can I develop a program to create an on-going relationship with a school?
46:26 AUDIENCE QUESTION: How do you get in front of the decision-makers – teachers & librarians?
52.10 AUDIENCE QUESTION: How can we promote to schools and keep “green”? Who’s the first contact at a school?
57.22 AUDIENCE QUESTION: I donated a school visit. Media will be coming. What I should I be prepared for?
01:02:05 AUDIENCE QUESTION: How do you know what to charge for the different events? Do you think it’s important to include kids in the presentation or is it okay just to do a PowerPoint to the kids?
01:09:21 END of Podcast

Connecting Author Visits with Picture Book Month: Advice from Dianne de Las Casas

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PBMLOGO-COLOR_WEBRES If you haven’t ridden the wave of Picture Book Month activities this year, it’s never too early to start planning for next year.  My friend and founder of this celebration, Dianne de Las Casas, author, storyteller, and children’s book advocate extraordinaire, gives terrific advice on just how to do this!

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Picture Book Month is an international literacy initiative that celebrates the print picture book during the month of November every year. Now in its third year, through the power of the Internet and social media, Picture Book Month has grown exponentially each year with partners such as SCBWI, the Children’s Book Council, the American Library Association, the American Booksellers Association, and many more. Every day in November, the website features an essay about the importance of picture books written by a prominent author, illustrator, or mover and shaker in the children’s book industry. All over the world, schools, libraries, and bookstores are celebrating Picture Book Month with author visits, Skype author visits, Google hangouts, YouTube and Vimeo videos, blog posts, Twitter chats, and big picture book displays. In addition, students are reading thousands upon thousands of picture books. A school in Hungary last year read over 6,000 picture books during Picture Book Month! Here’s how you can tap into the movement and connect with Picture Book Month.

  • 1.     Become a Picture Book Month Ambassador. Become a Picture Book Month Ambassador and place the Ambassador badge on your website, with a link HOUSE-NewPictureBookMonth.com. There is no cost and it shows your support. Educators, librarians, the home school community, booksellers, bloggers, literacy organizations, and parents are celebrating Picture Book Month in November. Becoming a Picture Book Month Ambassador demonstrates that you believe in the power of print picture books and support picture books as a building block of literacy. You can register to celebrate Picture Book Month (it’s never too late) and even get listed as an author on the website.

2.     Offer School and Library Visits During Picture Book Month. Many schools and libraries celebrate Picture Book Month with author visits. If you are an author of picture books, November is a great time for you! Send out postcards, advertise in your email newsletter, and post to your social media sites that you are available for author visits during Picture Book Month. Check with your local libraries and schools to find out what they are doing to celebrate. Perhaps you could be part of their kick-off or finale.

  • LittleReadHen3.     Offer Skype Author Visits During Picture Book Month. Librarians like John Schumacher from Brook Forest Elementary School in Illinois and Teachers like Colby Sharp, who is a Nerdy Book Club Blogger, love doing Skype visits with authors during Picture Book Month. When schools and libraries don’t have the funds for an in-person author visit, they often turn to Skype author visits as a viable solution. They love nothing more than to connect their readers with the writers of their favorite books. A Skype Author Visit is a great way to link your picture books with schools and libraries during Picture Book Month.

4.     Check Out the New Picture Book Month Teacher’s Guide. Marcie Colleen, Picture Book Month’s Educational Consultant, has created an incredible 16 page Picture Book Month Teachers Guide. The guide correlates picture books to the U.S. Common Core and learning standards. Educators have less time to spend on content that falls outside of their assigned curriculum. Our Teacher’s Guide demonstrates, with research and data, that picture books are a valuable part of a student’s education. You can use our study guide as a springboard to create your own and illustrate how your picture books tie in to the curriculum and the Common Core.

  • 5.     Connect with the Picture Book Month Community. One of the great ways Dianne - Storyteller - Rita Crayonto receive invitations to schools, libraries, and conferences is to become involved in social media. Picture Book Month has a thriving Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest community. Our Twitter handle is @PictureBkMonth and our hashtag is #PictureBookMonth. Join the conversation, post your favorite picture books in response to our daily theme, and even connect with other authors and illustrators. Many of our Picture Book Month champions are on Facebook and Twitter. Read the daily essays on the Picture Book Month website and be sure to comment. Each comment is entered into our drawing for a chance to win autographed books from our Picture Book Month Champions.

Picture Book Month is all about promoting literacy by celebrating print picture books, the authors and illustrators who create them, and the readers who love them. Join us! November is Picture Book Month. Read * Share * Celebrate!

DiannedeLasCasasinherlibrary1920X1920Dianne de Las Casas is an award-winning author, storyteller, and founder of Picture Book Month. Her performances, dubbed “revved-up storytelling” are full of energetic audience participation. The author of 22 books and the 2013 recipient of the Ann Martin Book Mark award, her picture book titles include The Cajun Cornbread Boy, There’s a Dragon in the Library, The House That Witchy Built, The Little “Read” Hen, and The House That Santa Built. Visit her website at diannedelascasas.com. Visit Picture Book Month at PictureBookMonth.com.

7 Ways to Make Indie Booksellers Love You

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by Catherine Linka

Title&CandyHearts

As the children’s and YA book buyer for Flintridge Bookstore and Coffeehouse in La Ca?ada, California, Catherine Linka as had countless experiences with authors and school visits. But many authors are clueless about etiquette. Take a look at the tips she shares and ee how you might improve your approach.

1. Be absolutely clear from the first conversation with a bookseller if you need to charge for a school visit. It is fine with us if this is how you make your living, but do not expect us to get the business for you. We will, however, be happy to supply books after you have made the deal. If you can afford to do free school visits, it will be a treat for us to call our customers and set those up.

2. Tell us what size of group you prefer to work with well in advance. It’s OK if you like to meet with 20-40 kids. You don’t need to see a huge group to please the bookseller.

3. Help us sell you into the school. Send us jpegs of you and your book. Forward us a short bio, and ask your publicist to send us a couple ARCs to give to teachers. Give us a summary of what you will do during your visit or suggest pre-visit activities for the teachers. Booksellers are busy, and we appreciate authors who make our lives easier. 

4. If you need audio-visual equipment–give us 3-4 days notice to contact the school and get those arrangements in place. And tell us what type of hardware or software you’re bringing.

5. Be professional. Avoid off color language or controversial statements that can embarrass the school and endanger the relationship that the bookseller has with it. Booksellers work very hard to build relationships with schools and libraries, and we need authors to understand that if we take them to a school–  their behavior reflects on us.

6. Give us a cell phone number so if you are late, we can reach you.

7. Do a good deed. There are some small schools in my area that are dear to my heart, because they serve kids who have emotional or learning differences or who are in the foster care system. Visiting these schools won’t sell a lot of books, but I will be a Heather Brewer fan until the day I die after watching her speak about growing up as an outcast to a group of kids who I know struggle with social relationships.

CatherineLinkaCatherine Linka is the children’s and YA book buyer for the Flintridge Bookstore and Coffeehouse in La Ca?ada, California. An MFA grad of the Vermont College of Fine Arts, Catherine’s debut novel, A GIRL CALLED FEARLESS will be published by St. Martin’s  in spring 2014.

 

Happy Birthday, Kite Book!

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Cover-KITEBook-FINAL_KHToday my new picture book for older readers launches — both literally and figuratively! We’re heading up to Ventura Harbor this afternoon with family and friends for a kite-fest birthday celebration. So Happy Birthday to The Kite That Bridged Two Nations: Homan Wlash and the First Niagara Suspension Bridge.

Later this month, I’ll be traveling to Niagara Falls USA and Canada for a formal launch in the territory where the subject of my book, Homan Walsh, lived in the 1800s and now rests at Oakwood Cemetery in Niagara Falls, New York.  The first is a VIP launch on 9/27 to thank experts who reviewed the book, local dignitaries, family and friends. The next two are Family Day events — one at Oakwood Cemetery, Niagara Falls, NY on 9/28 and the other across the bridge in Canada at the Niagara Falls History Museum on 9/29. A grant from the Niagara Falls Bridge Commission is helping to fund kite-making and other activities during the launch. Meg Albers, a kite expert and director of Aeolus Curricula is leading those activities.

In advance of this event, I’ll be doing presentations at the Niagara Falls Public Library, New York on 9/24, Fort Erie Public Library, Ontario on 9/25 and will be a guest of Judie Glaser’s program, Community Conversations, a TV program sponsored by the Niagara Falls City School District.

I am incredibly grateful to Terry Widener for his gorgeous illustrations, my editor Carolyn Yoder for her enthusiasm and thoroughness, and Kerry McManus and the whole team at Calkins Creek/Boyds Mills Press for their solid support in bringing this book into the world and getting the word out about it!

Now — here I go! I’m off to the harbor to fly kites!

4 Tips for Book Festival Presentations

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Book Festival Props

For outdoor presentations, blow up book pages to at least 16" x 20" and have kids help on stage

Book festivals offer big challenges to authors and illustrators when it comes to keeping the crowd focused and engaged in your presentation.

In school assemblies, you’re confident that the kids have a collective understanding of the school’s rules and are grouped by age. You can use a PowerPoint presentation to great effect.

But book festivals are open-air, multi-generational, noisy settings full of distractions and a fluid crowd. PowerPoint? Forget it!  A reading? It won’t engage enough of a crowd. Props? Better make them big so they can be seen. In short, you’ll have to revamp your presentation to suit the setting.

For my presentation at Feria del Libro in downtown Los Angeles, the stage was a small outdoor amphitheatre. Many of the festival-goers’ first language was Spanish.

 For color, I enlarged key pages of my book, Estela’s Swap, into poster-size images and laminated them. To engage the crowd, I invited kids to hold the posters on stage with the blank side toward the audience. Then I had the crowd sing a song that’s key to my story, “Cielto Lindo.” (While I don’t know how to speak Spanish, I can sing this song in Spanish!)

As I shared my book as a storyteller would (telling, not reading text), I tapped on kids to reveal the images for key points in the story. In the last scene, I had one child be the main character: she put on a bright orange Ballet Folklorico skirt and twirled.

To end, I had everyone – kids on stage and the audience – sing “Cielito Lindo” once more. This took about 15-20 minutes from start to finish, the perfect amount of time to keep a festival crowd’s attention.

 So here are 4 tips for successful Book Festival presentations:

1)     make your props big

2)     engage the audience in a group response

3)     use kids as volunteers

4)     keep the time limit short.

Click here for a list by state of Book Festivals and when they occur.