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Event Consultation & Planning Services Traditional Media Consultation Speaker Coaching Social Media Consultation Crowdfunding Consultation

 

Event Consultation & Planning

Coach: Susan McBeth, Founder and Owner of Adventures by the Book™ and AuthorPreneurs™ Topic: Planning and Strategies for Book Signing Events and Readings Description: Do you dream of one day hosting your first book signing event? Or perhaps you’ve had your first event, and it wasn’t as successful as you had originally envisioned. Or perhaps you’ve had many book signings, and are bored with how stale they have become. During your session with Susan, you will learn tips on what you should be doing NOW, no matter where you are in the writing or publishing process, to start establishing a firm foundation for your book so that you can create successful book signings and author events. After all, you wouldn’t dream of building a house without first establishing a foundation yet, counter-intuitively, that’s precisely what most authors do. You will learn to define your goals for success as an author and learn what makes an event successful, how to identify your author strengths and limitations and how to identify your reading audience; how to pitch events to libraries and bookstores, how to think outside the box with non-traditional events, how to connect with your readers, and to understand book signing etiquette and post-event debriefing and why that is important. About: Susan McBeth has worked as an events coordinator for over 25 years, including four and a half as Director of Marketing and Events at an independent bookstore. She founded Adventures by the Book™ in 2011 to offer worldwide opportunities for readers to connect with authors and their books through unique, interesting, and adventurous events and travels. She also founded AuthorPreneurs™, which provides writers and authors with opportunities to become better entrepreneurs through monthly meetings, networking, workshops, and private consulting. Back to Top

Traditional Media Consultation

Coach: Jennifer Coburn, Author and Founder of Jen Coburn Communications Topic: Getting You and Your Books in the Media Description: The key to successful book marketing is reaching a wide audience of readers with an effective marketing message. One of the best ways authors can achieve this is through “earned media,” which means developing timely and newsworthy stories that appear in traditional media: newspapers, magazine, TV, radio, and blogs. During your session with USA Today bestselling author and book publicist, Jennifer Coburn, you will develop several story angles and pitches that are most likely to gain media placement. You will discuss best places to submit your book for review or feature, and create effective strategies for earning placement. Avoid frequently made mistakes by authors and consult with a professional who has been working with local media for more than twenty years. This small investment will yield a great return. About: Jennifer’s books have been featured in numerous publications, including USA Today, the Miami Herald, San Diego Magazine, and Modern Luxury, among dozens of others. She has been featured on numerous regional radio and TV programs. Her books have appeared on popular blogs that reach close to a half-million readers. Back to Top

Speaking Coaching

Coach: Kathi Diamant, Author, Speaker, Emmy Award Winning TV Interviewer Topic: Preparing Authors for Interviews, Readings, and Presentations Description: The key to successful book readings, presentations, and interviews is preparation and practice. But how do you prepare and how best to practice to ensure your best chance for success? During your session with Kathi, you will better understand your options for presenting your book so people will buy it, what to talk about, benefits and challenges of different venues, lengths of talks, Q&A preparation, gauging your audience, personal appearances, how to behave at talks and readings, what to wear, how to work the book club circle, how to get over the jitters, and how to develop questions for book discussion groups. With respect to television, radio, and print interviews, Kathi will coach you to develop presentation tools, understand the difference between the media, prepare questions to ask before being interviewed, develop foolproof methods to get your point across even to unprepared interviewers, and understand how to become a media expert on your subject. About: As the author of the Geisel Award-winning Kafka’s Last Love: The Mystery of Dora Diamant, Kathi Diamant has presented over 200 book talks in the past decade, in venues from bookstores, libraries, and book clubs to international literary festivals. She has been interviewed for dozens of national and international newspapers, magazines, and on television and radio programs in the US, UK, Australia, and Europe, An Emmy-award winning television host, Kathi works as on on-air interviewer for local and national PBS pledge programs, and has taught television presentation skills at KPBS Public Broadcasting in San Diego. Back to Top

Social Media Consultation

Coach: Barbra Drizin, Founder and Owner of Start from Scratch Social Media Topic: Social Media for Authors: Strategy, Platforms, Content, and Competence Description: Increasing your author visibility through social media platforms allows you to meet readers, cultivate an audience, and increase your discoverability to sell more books. Authors who use the opportunities of social media and the internet to amplify their voice, network with the right people, and make themselves and their work interesting, will build an audience. And an author with a ready-made audience is a powerful person. If social media are your tools, it is your responsibility to learn to use them well. But which social media platforms are right for you? And if you build them, will they come? During your session with Barbra, you will gain insight into the top social media platforms and discover which ones would serve you best (including Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Youtube, and Goodreads). You will learn the necessary ingredients of a social media strategy: consistency, content, and competence, and we will answer the ‘questions to ask” before choosing the platforms for your target audience. Finally, we will embark on building one professional platform at a time, and learn how to maximize its potential. How will you learn? On YOUR social media site: Barbra combines education and customized implementation. If you already have social media platforms in place, we’ll learn how to use them to their fullest potential. About: Barbra Drizin launched Start from Scratch Social Media with the goal of conveying technical knowledge in an easily understood manner, especially for the “not-so-tech-savvy!”. Back to Top

Crowdfunding Consultation

Coach: Andy Trimlett, Crowdfunding Consultant Topic: Preparing a Crowdfunding Campaign for Your Book Description: Do you have a great book in your head but can't afford to take the time off of work to write it? Are you ready to self-publish, but just don't have the funds to do it? Thousands of authors have funded their book projects on sites like Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and Pubslush. You could be next. Schedule a session with Andy to learn the secrets of crowdfunding. In your session, Andy will discuss what you need to do to prepare for your campaign-how to decide on a goal, set up reward levels, create your pitch video, write your story text, set up your segmented mass email campaign and social media campaign, organize promotional events, and more. In addition, Andy will share a variety of fundraising tactics with you-both those that have worked for decades, as well as, techniques that are specific to crowdfunding. Andy will leave you with a pre-campaign checklist that will ensure you don't miss anything major or minor in getting ready for your campaign. About: Andy spent eight years as a fundraising producer at KPBS Public Broadcasting in San Diego, where he served as a writer, producer, and editor for campaigns that raised millions of dollars for the station every year. He is now a freelance fundraising consultant, working for PBS and a number of local stations across the country. He has consulted on successful crowdfunding campaigns for everything from a robotics kit to television programs to a throwable microphone. The campaign for his upcoming documentary about  the Israeli-Palestinian conflict raised over $59,000. Back to Top