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

Focus Your Gig-Getting Energies in the New Year

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The number one question authors who want to do more school visits ask me is “How can I get more gigs?”

The simple answer is this: participate in activities where you are most likely to meet the people who are in a position to hire you. These people usually include librarians, teachers and teaching specialists, principals, curriculum coordinators, and parent group leaders. Also, booksellers often recommend authors to schools, so they are important contacts to have.

Look for opportunities to meet them where they gather – at workshops and conferences at the school district, county and state-wide levels. The best kind of involvement is doing presentations – either solo, duo or on a panel – where participants get a feel for your personality, presentation style and your books.

Concentrate on becoming known locally.  Even high-profile authors are feeling the funding pinch as many hosts are looking for local authors to save travel costs.

Schedule time to do an online search for professional associations. Find out when they meet and propose doing a workshop session. For example, I live in California, so here are some of the educational and literary associations, with their national counterparts, that I have been involved with (and most states will have similar groups):

Social gatherings are also great places to build relationships. For example, I attend some luncheons organized by teachers and librarians, especially those at which my friends are keynote speakers or who are receiving awards. These would include:

 Take time to find URLs for organizations, keep a database of conference dates and proposal deadlines, and strategize on where you can best focus your gig-finding opportunities in the coming year.

To get you started, here’s a link to reading associations in North America:

Read Across America Invitations

Google - Read Across America Logo‘Tis the season for emails requesting our presence as Read Across America readers in elementary schools throughout the country.  Often, the greeting on the email is “Hi.”  This usually means that the host is casting the same message to countless authors & illustrators, hoping to reel in one or two live ones.  Occasionally, the greeting will be personalized as in, “Dear [insert name of author here]” with a generic message following it.  And in the very best emails, they might even mention the title of one or more of your books.

Usually, the schools want you to be part of their celebration which translates to, “Would you be interested in being one of the readers for the event? You can read in as many classrooms as you feel comfortable.”

Really? Go all that way just to read a book aloud?  And be one of many, many readers on a day filled with adults and kids in Cat in the Hat chapeaux and principals shaving their heads because kids have read a trillion pages?

And we won’t even mention that you are being asked to donate your time.

Frankly, I love that this celebration exists.  It gives a national platform to a very important topic.  And I’m very gracious when I turn down these requests.  But, my own talents as a writer, encourager, and teacher are better off being used at a quieter time when I can do my magic not as someone who can rock a read-aloud, but as someone who can offer kids specific advice on how to improve their writing, revel in their revisions, and read, read, read.  And read not just to count pages accomplished – but to read to lead a better, fuller life.

Do you have any Read Across America Stories you’d like to share?  Tell us here!

SCBWI Metro NY Talk – Getting Gigs, Delivering the Goods

MetroNY-SCBWI

With my winter coat on my back, boots on my feet and scarf wrapped tightly around my neck, this California gal is in New York for the SCBWI Winter Conference.  But the fun continues afterwards.  I’ll be visiting two schools on Long Island, then heading back to speak at The Professional Series sponsored by Metro NY SCBWI on February 1, 2011 where I’ll be giving authors, illustrators and industry professionals the lowdown about  “Getting Gigs and Delivering the Goods.” 

Location: The Anthroposophical Society, New York Branch,
138 West 15th Street (between 6th Avenue & 7th Avenue).

Time: 7:30pm-9:30pm. Doors open at 7:15pm

Setting Fees, Getting Gigs and Delivering the Goods

If you’re at the summer SCBWI Conference at the Century Plaza Hotel in Century City, CA on Sunday, August 1, come on over to my workshop from 10:45 – 11:45 a.m. (room TBA). Our topic is School Visits; Setting Fees, Getting Gigs and Delivering the Goods.  I’ll be sharing lots of resources and looking forward to lively discussion among P.A.L. colleagues.