Episode 45: Speaking Engagements

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Hello, my beautiful cinnabar moths or any kind of math you’d like to be welcome to the Writer’s Triangle, our podcast about all things publishing and books. And today we’re going to be talking about speaking engagements. Speaking engagements are so important when it comes to promoting yourself as a writer, even if you haven’t published yet, and especially if you’ve published, speaking engagements are amazing for every author at every level, and a great way to break into the industry. If you’re struggling a little bit when it comes to getting out there submitting and querying. And if you’re not having any luck speaking engagements are a great way to create a brand and have the industry, know your perspective as an author and understand your perspective in terms of your writing, and what to expect from you. And get to know your point of view and qualification. So I think everybody should get into speaking engagements, if they feel comfortable doing so. And something that I think is really great with the modern era, is even if you have a serious deep separation between your author persona, if you’re using a pen name, and if you’re using an avatar, not your your own image or not wanting to be on a mic, like for me, you know, every week on the writers triangle, right, we use a picture. And we use does a sound wave is basically how we appear. The reason that we do that approach is I don’t want people to get used to seeing habituating, to seeing a human face. Because some of our authors do have an avatar and a pen name. And some of our talent and creatives have an avatar and pen name, or professional and rather than their government name. And I think that that that is completely okay. And that you can still be successful on talking circuits, and still get speaking engagements. Because you can do virtual speaking engagements, and attend virtual conferences and virtual book fairs where you can have an avatar and a sound wave, I advise people to invest in some software that will let them animate their avatar. So that way you have an an avatar, that’s when you speak is moving. And there are several free online programs that will allow you to do that and just a slew of YouTube tutorials on how to create an animation. And if you’re using an avatar, it will be time well spent. And you will be able to put snippets of that, to let people who are investigating you, or looking or considering you and for speaking engagements, you can have a clip of what it would look like. So you can make a sound bite clip of that animated avatar, so that people can get used to the idea. And it’s actually quite common and more frequent than people realize. And I think that there’s just I think folks are not researching speaking engagements, as much as as I am. And so they may not be coming across, and probably aren’t attending as many virtual conferences and book fairs as I do, because I’m promoting the press.

K
So I’m promoting all of our authors all of the time. And that means attending a lot of a book conferences, and a lot of book fairs that I think that have people that I’m trying to reach in the industry, if that makes sense. So I don’t attend everyone, everywhere all the time. But I do have some targeted ones that I want to attend as a press if they have a virtual component because I’m located in Japan. And I’m not traveling, because I don’t enjoy traveling. And so for me having those virtual options and attending so many virtual conferences, and having seen firsthand these animated avatars, I was really excited because that opens the door for for our authors and creatives who are using an avatar and a professional pen name and don’t want to have their image associated with their writing. That level of privacy is exciting. And I’m just hoping everyone knows that this topic is for every writer. I want to talk a little bit about the speaking conference, the where you can get speaking engagements based on where they are and I want to start from the personal level what you can do on a personal level and then kind of expand in terms of your social circles, circles and then expand beyond that.

K
I want to start with when with What comes up when I was first investigating speaking engagements, and the first thing that that comes up is church. And I know not everyone goes to church. And I’m not advising, that if you’re not a church goer that you need to go to church, because I would put on par with church, any social group that you hang out in or regularly attend, or any sort of hobby groups, any sort of special interest groups, because I put church in a special interest group. And the reason how I get there is because religion is specific and a special interest, right? Because are we talking about going to a temple? Are we talking about going to a Senate, Senegal? Are we talking about going to a mosque? Are we talking about an open air gathering, any place that people are gathering in any type of gathering that you attend on a regular basis, is an opportunity for you to say, Hey, I wrote a book, Can I do a reading? Or hey, I wrote a book, can I give a talk? Or hey, I read a book, can I start a book club?

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Or, Hey, I haven’t read a book, I love reading, can I start a book club, using those social groups to get to create a spring off group that is focused on reading, writing, and all things books and publishing, right? Like the writers triangle. That’s where you start just any group that you belong to, you can ask folks, and that goes the same for online groups, and in person groups, any group that is specific. Also, you can start a meetup group in your area if there isn’t a book club and check meetups because there may be a book club, joining online book clubs and reading books. And they say you can’t pitch your own books, don’t join us to pitch your books. That’s true and not true. If you join the book club and online book club, and you’re reading those books and participating on a regular basis, you can get to know the head of the book club, and even if they say you can’t submit to, you can’t submit your book, don’t submit to the group, the head of the book club will sometimes be open. And that’s usually doing six months to a year of good attendance, reading all of the books that they suggest and being an active member who comments and support other authors, and paying attention to what type of books that book club is reading. Does your book fit that genre? And are you a good fit. So that’s the social groups and what you can do at your social level. And that, you know, transpires in person and online, whatever is most comfortable for you. The same goes interestingly enough, for bookstores, you can approach bookstores, everything I’m saying, just say don’t keep repeating it, you can do online or in person, whatever your comfort level is, and I’m speaking from experience, because we’ve had some success, and I’m in Japan, I have not met any of the people I work with in person. None of I’ve met none of our authors. And I’ve met none of the people, the folks who are giving our authors opportunities, and person, it’s all been via email or social media. And that’s because I’m in Japan. And it’s just not practical for me to to travel the world doing that. Because I also, you know, have a therapy business. So I’m quite busy and sending our sending our representatives out into the world, because we have global representation. And we have authors from, you know, all over the globe, and we put our books out all over the globe, we would need a global global sales force, which we don’t have some of the big five, do you have a global Salesforce that are not doing this? And do you have a global marketing force that are not doing this. And that’s why I want to talk to authors about how to have a global reach without having to go through their publishers. But also it’s kind of an FYI, to let our authors know what I’m doing, and sort of a shorthand for that. So that’s why everything I know can be done in person and online because I’m doing it online, but it can also be done in person, if that makes sense.

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When it comes to reaching independent bookstores, we have a bevy of independent bookstores who carry our entire catalog. And for the independent bookstores who carry our entire catalog. I have spent a year getting to know them and getting to know what events they put on what sort of talks they put on. So I have a schedule of events and talks that I know independent bookstores are going to be putting on and independent bookstores around the globe. And I sent out a mass email to our authors and asked, What’s your mile radius? From your address? What’s your geographic radius? Where will you attend in person virtual? And what levels and all of that right? So you have to decide what level are you comfortable with? Or is it only virtual at the avatar level? Or is it a mix of virtual and in person? Is it only in person, start with what you feel comfortable in terms of, of how you want to make the approach and in terms of what it is that you want to do. And the reason I’m focusing for focusing first on what you want to do and what you feel comfortable, because that will shape the type of speaking that you’re doing, if that makes sense. So reaching out to bookstores, for me, I take a year to plan anything. And I find that most novelist will have the experience of needing to wait at least a year to have their book published in that year, while you’re waiting for your your book to be published. Get a list of local indie bookstores, or make a list of of indie bookstores that you really admire. Online or, or from the library or, you know, in your where you’re at or internationally.

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And over that year, look at what speaking events? Do they have? And do they? Do they participate in any hashtags? And do they participate in any chain of events. So there are several different chain events where books or any bookstores have gotten together and said, Hey, let’s promote all of our bookstores. Let’s find local authors to talk on a theme. Some are one that one of our authors attended. Rob Creekmore attended noir at the bar, he participated in that and he’s the author of Prophet steht. Shout out, we just put up a recording of of the reading, and absolutely loved the book, it is definitely dark and fabulous. Looking at that noir at the bar, it wasn’t just the one bar that was doing it, it was a group of a group of of venues that were doing it and they weren’t all bars, there were a group of venues, some bookstores, some coffee houses, some bars, it was just a group of local places that do book readings that put on this event. So looking at local bookstores, looking at different venues and different reading events, where these people are using a collective to raise their voice and compete with with large chains. And that will be really helpful because you can participate, you can communicate, you can get to get to know them support the authors who attended support the venues that hosted. And through that support. It’s an introduction so that you can then participate at that level. And that’s the way to get readings at local libraries at local coffee houses and local venues and global venues that are on a smaller scale than like, you know, Barnes and Noble, or Walmart. And those big venues tend to only do readings and opportunities for larger authors, bestselling authors.

K
But that’s not always the case. Some of these large venues are privately owned franchises. So they do have some franchise rules that they have to follow that I would say look in and see in your local area, do these big chains or do these big stores. What are the events that they’re putting on and get to know the events and get to know the manager at these large bookstores because they may let you come in and participate where they might not place an order for a book where you would have to bring in your own copies to sale and your own cash box to handle the sell of those copies. But they will give you a spot for speaking and will allow you to do a reading from your book. That’s the most common event when you’re looking at bookstores and libraries and those types of venues. And that’s usually a 15 minute spot. And if you don’t know how to do that 15 minute spot what to read. The rule of thumb is you can start with chapter one for your first reading and then decide if you want to change it. And to time it I think it’s something like 10,000 or 13,000 words. actually read it and time yourself and if you can’t get From beginning to end of chapter one, look at editing chapter one down and leaving the beginning hole and leaving the ending hole. But seeing what you can cut out of the middle to hit that word count, and then practice reading it so that when you do your reading, you’re staying on time, that’s the most important thing, if you have a 10 minute spot, that you only take up 10 minutes, you have a 15 minute spot that you only take 15 minutes, do not go over when when you’re doing readings, because if you can hit your mark, and the audience responds to you, you may get invited to other readings. And that’s the best way is to, you know, be professional, dress appropriately. Whatever, you know, however, the venue, whatever the attire there, some are really formal, some are really casual ask me, you kind of know by looking at at the venue. So those are basic how to get out there to do book readings.

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The next thing to do is how to become a topic expert. As an author. I have a lot of authors who say to me, I don’t have any expertise. I don’t have any training, I don’t have a Master of Fine Arts. And therefore I can’t give talks on on anything. And that’s not true. And I’d like to shout out CW because I think she does CW Allen, who is the author of The Flying high, the flat and high and chronicles relatively normal secrets, Ms. Secret benefits of invisibility, middle grade portal fantasy adventure books. And CW has done an amazing job. She knows her brand. She knows what she wants to talk about. And she owns her space. And I am just just completely in on I just I am so just giddy as as a school kid, that we have the she’s one of our authors, because she really is exemplary. And a lot of our authors look to her and sort of mimic what she’s doing and do it in their area. And I do think that she’s a great author to check out when it comes to brand building. I think her website is amazing. I think her presentation online is amazing. And the writing matches her writing is as amazing when it comes to becoming an an expert in a given field. Look at what is your passion and CW’s passion is kid lit, which is not strictly middle grade, there is some overlap with with middle grade, but not at the age and level of her writing. And my experience, I think it’s right at the upper end of what could be put in with that that kid lit. But CW has a real passion for kid lit and what should be included, and Kid lit and has mastered the understanding that promoting yourself as promoting your books. If someone likes you, they’re more likely to read your book just because they like you. And they like your point of view. And I think that’s really smart. I don’t think it always has to be focused specifically on what you’re writing, or specifically your genre or specifically your age group. It’s about where is your passion? What can you give a 30 minute talk on. And the reason I say 30 minutes, and this is veering off of any specific offering and going back to what I advise what I advise for any author if they’re looking at how to promote themselves and how to become a speaker and how to get that 30 minute mark.

K
And the reason I picked 30 minutes is because if you hit 30 minutes, speaking engagements come in 10, 15, 30, 45 and 60 minute opportunities from my lived experience. And looking at, you know, panel opportunities, reading opportunities book for opportunities, and conference opportunities, those are the time links, and I find that at 30 minutes, you can shrink it down to one of the smaller increments. And at 30 minutes, you can expand it with the 15 Minute q&a to that 45 minute spot. And you can expand it to 60 minutes by doing doing a 15 minute q&a. And then after that at the 45 minute mark, doing a 15 minute wrap up based on points that that people are questions that people ask by doing callbacks to what you said in your first 30 minutes or callbacks to things that you didn’t include in this particular talk that you’ve included, and other talks. How to make that 30 minutes is find what you’re passionate about. And then see do you have 30 minutes of conversation on it either by research or investigation and make some bullet points for yourself and then give that talk and see, can you talk for 30 minutes, I can say from my own lived experience, I do have bullet points for every writer’s triangle episode that I do, despite how much I progress, how much I digress rather, and Miss speak, and say I’m all of those things, I’m still considered an accomplished public speaker and I still get booked to give talks. So you don’t have to be completely polished. And if you listen to podcasts these days, you can see that that I miss said a lot. And there are some that say it after every sentence, I also say so a lot, I have a lot of filler words. And the reason I’m talking about that is because when you’re practicing, I don’t want you to feel like it has to be perfect and polished without any of those markers or those pauses that we have in normal everyday speech, I think it makes them more conversational, to have it. And more personable, right makes you sound more human and less robotic. For those that have mastered speaking. Without that, I think that’s perfectly fine, too. I just want everybody to feel like speaking is accessible to them.

K
So once you have your topic, and you have your bullet points, and you talk for 30 minutes, if you find that you have more than 30 minutes, break that into two different talks. Because when you’re having to do a pitch, which is my segue to the next section, that once you have your topics down, then you have to be able to pet your topics. And when you’re making your pitch, it’s really great to say I have a talk on cheese, I have a talk on speaking and and publishing on how to do talks and how to land speaking gigs and publishing. I have one perspective on what venues want. And I have one perspective on tips for authors. And I can give two talks on these two different perspectives on this topic. And here’s a sample of what that that sounds like making a sample recording your voice is so important. If you’ve never done a speaking engagement, they may ask for a sample with the pitch or they may not. Some may ask for recording of speaking engagements. And that’s a little bit trickier, those aren’t going to be the first opportunity talks, looking at ones that don’t have that that requirement. But having a 30 minute set required, recorded rather than you’re able to make that pitch, making the pitch a part of making the pitch as having a really great bio. If you go to cinnabar moth.com, you can look at all of our authors bio by clicking on author and seeing that there is wide and wild variability in our author bios. The reason for that being is I want it to be authentic to the author. So we don’t have the prescribed set author bio, because I don’t think there’s any one perfect bio, there may be venues who say that. And you can check out author bios of the speakers who have come before you and write your bio to that. But the first step is writing a bio so that you have at least one list of facts about yourself. And looking at our website gives you a bunch of authors and a bunch of different approaches to that so that you can practice and mimic and see which ones resonate with you. Which BIOS Do you think yeah, that’s good. I would totally want to book that author or work with that author.

K
Those are the bios that that you want to write. And you can also we link all of our authors, author pages and author websites, on their bios. So then you can migrate to their, their website, and and do research and look at who’s doing it in a way that that resonates with you. That’s important to do to know who you are, and have an idea of what it is you’re pitching when you’re going to pitch conferences and when you’re going to pitch book fairs. Because to pitch a book fair, all you have to do to be part of their open call for speakers is attend the book fair, if there’s a book fair that you want to speak at, sign up and attend and book fairs are open anyone anyone can attend a book fair. So go in, sign up to attend a book fair. Look at if they have any open calls, if they don’t have any open calls. When you attend the book fair get to know the organizers. If they’re having a roundtable or dinner or breakout event with the organizers attend that. Get to know them be has the next time you sign up. They’re going to know who you are and they’re going to remember you and you’ll be more likely to get a speaking engagement with conferences. It’s the same thing. Sign up for the conference. attend the conference big Read attendee participate a ton of breakout sessions that have people that you want to talk to in them.

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So looking at the breakout section sessions, who’s attending those sessions, who’s running those breakout sessions so that they have their mass everybody attends, and then they have their different sub sessions that you can attend, Target, who you want to talk to, and attend those. So that way you’re getting to your name out there against people in the industry. And you can attend a book fair and conference, even if you’ve never been published. Some of them are only for authors who have been published, but for the most part, they’re open to everyone who wants to attend. So this is awesome for anybody who’s interested in becoming an author, or anyone who’s already writing and hasn’t published yet or someone who is published. The other way to get speaking engagements is to belong to writing groups. There are free writing groups that you can belong to which we talked about a couple episodes ago, I want to say a few weeks or months ago, and those writing groups may have speaking opportunities, ask or read the newsletter, if you belong to a writing group. I know a lot of us can sign up for things and not read the newsletter. And when you don’t read the newsletter for the things that you sign up to you miss out on opportunities.

K
If you’re looking to talk, read every newsletter that hits your inbox, I know it’s labor intensive, but I promise you the work will pay off. Speaking from my own lived experience, I have so many newsletters, and I have a day that I just read newsletters. That’s what I do the whole day. I’m like, Okay, it’s newsletter day. And I pick the day based on when things hit my inbox. And I read and look for opportunities, I look for opportunities for the prospect of the opportunities for our authors, I look for opportunities to shout out on social media because it gives me social media content. And it’s not just most of those are for the things that aren’t just for people who sign up for the newsletter. They’re also paid writers groups that are a little bit higher end. And the the charge can be anywhere from $50 $50 USD to $1,000 USD a year. And I say start with the money. If you have a budget for that, pay attention to what you’re paying for, take time to read the site. And make sure those benefits are specific to the genre that you write in. And specific to the types of things that you want to do and the types of events that you want to attend. And the way that you want to get your name out there. Look, do they have any awards attached to them? Are you able to nominate books? And is there a book club? What are you going to get is it value added for that money you’re spending and some of these higher end book clubs, I want to say at the better $100 USD range that these bookstores, the book clubs, really, the sorry, the writers groups really started to have value added that press belongs to a couple of them.

K
And that’s because you’re able to nominate books, were able to have talked about the books that are in our roster, we’re able to attend talks, we’re able to say, hey, this person would be great for a talk. And it’s value added to the press, make sure it’s value added to you, because your time, attention and money are really precious resources. And all of this is labor intensive. So you’re, you’re already having a time investment. Be careful with your time and your energy. And if the writing group it has on every page for every writing group it has, what type of genre they are when they’re genre specific writing groups, ask yourself honestly, does the majority of your writing fit into that? And is that what you want to be writing? If you just have a couple of pieces? Is this going to be your long term relationship with writing as an author, and is this value added and the cool thing is you can you know, have a membership and then say I did it for a year. That’s what I was doing this year with this book or with this group of writing and next year, I’m going to do something different. And join each group for a year and and open and close your your membership. Because they do have all of them do have Hey, you can restart your membership at any time and you can bump up a level or go down a level on an annual basis. And you still have all the benefits of knowing all those authors and knowing the industry people who are in those groups and listening to talks and all of that because I have gotten to know authors through writing groups. And several of the authors who published the press got to know them through writing groups. and really enjoy their perspective as a person, their perspective as an author, also, their identity and politics is something that we consider for all of our authors.

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We want their political views to align with our own, because one of the things that we want to do is really broad case marginalized voices. But and making sure that the marginalized voice is a voice that we want amplified in the world is why we look at the personal level, joining these groups, you really get joining a writers group, you really get to know someone’s point of view, and how they’re going to represent themselves really well. And really quickly. And so we’ve been really, really fortunate and had a lot of success with that. These are just a boilerplate starter kit, it’s no way the end all be all, only way to ever get a speaking gig. That’s just not the case. Okay, I want to say that, for sure, for certain that that is just not the case. And do your research. The main thing is, know that you can be a speaker, know that you have a right to have your perspective out there your point of view out there and, and you there is space for you in the speaker space, right? And give yourself permission to take up that space. That’s what I’m hoping because I love authors. I want more stories, but I also want authors to engage with their audience and get positive feedback. And it’s all about shooting more positive, more positivity for authors. That’s what this podcast is all about and transparency for the industry.

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So if you have any specific questions about speaking engagements, how to get speaking engagements, or just want to share your personal experience with speaking engagements, please feel free to you know, leave a comment in the comment section. Be sure to subscribe and turn on your notifications and give this podcast episode a like. You can also follow us on social media at cinnabar moth pub on all of our social media. And yeah, thank you to all of our beautiful cinnabar moths who tuned in and listened and you don’t have – if you’re not a cinnabar moth you can be any kind of moth you want to be or even a butterfly but I’m not Mariah Carey, and I’m not trying to bite her rhyme. Talk to you soon. Bye