Your book presentation is over, and you’re probably feeling a great sense of relief. You put a lot of work into it, readers and audience members likely responded favorably to it, and you’ve got a few extra bucks in your pocket from book sales. You probably are even inspired to go out and write a hundred pages of your next book!
But the work on your presentation isn’t over. There are still a few things to do to wrap it all up.
The most obvious of them is to clean up. Don’t leave a mess at your table. Toss out the half-eaten muffin, the Starbucks coffee cup, and the dirty napkins. Be sure to pack up your books and sales materials. You don’t want to leave a bad impression on the host’s managers or employees, and you don’t want to make a return trip to pick up items you need for other presentations.
When you get home, send the host a thank you letter. Your graciousness will be remembered the next time you want to promote a book there. An email is usually sufficient, but a handwritten note will be remembered more (and might even get hung up where others can see it).
Don’t forget publicity opportunities. Send pictures of the reading/signing to local media and post them on your website/blog/social media pages. Do this immediately after the event. Your host will appreciate the publicity, and it can net additional book sales from those who catch the blurb in their newspaper.
Next, reflect and revise. Spend a few days thinking about what went well in the presentation and what might be improved. This may be based in part on surveys you have at the end of your workshop. You’ll probably find that you don’t need to revamp the entire presentation but may have missed something or need a better slide for a specific point. Once you’ve identified some changes to make, make them.
Finally, set up the next presentation. Use the book reading or breakout session you just delivered as a launching pad to get into another store, library or conference, where you can deliver your improved presentation and sell even more books!
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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past decade, I’ve helped more than 300 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the 7 Minutes a Day… writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.