Visiting schools as a self-published author is fantastic fun and a great way to sell your book!
Once your book is all published and professionally printed it's time to start promoting your book far and wide... and hopefully make some money too.
We understand that many authors publish their books for the love of writing... but we also know that you need to earn a bit of money from your talents as well!
Make author visits work for you, and sell lots of books!
Fi started doing school visits back in 2010 and she's gone on to sell 10,000+ copies of her books, mainly via school visits. All it takes is a little hard work, the right people to contact and LOTS OF ENTHUSIASM!
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"Truth be told, I was way more excited about my first delivery of printed books than I was about actually selling them... that bit made me nervous at first! Then I realised that I could sell my books in a way that made me feel excited and happy - doing author visits to schools and inspiring kids with my stories!"
Author Visits to Primary Schools
A true fact: the first few author visits are scary.
You haven't a clue what you are doing, you are completely winging it and children can smell weakness (ha, no really they can). However, we promise that after you've done a few school visits you will realise which age group suits your book, what the children love hearing, what gets the kids really excited, what your key messages are, which learning points to focus on... oh and you'll realise that you REALLY SELL BOOKS!
Planning your school visits.
Start locally.
Starting with the schools in your local area is the best place to begin.
Spend some time researching (all hail Google!) schools near where you live, find out their names and where they are located. If you already have a connection with a school that is brilliant... maybe you went there as a child, your kids / grandkids go to the school or you have helped with an event there in the past. Perfect!
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There are loads of ways that you can contact the school, you can give them a call, pop into their office or send them an email. It's worth remembering that lots of emails do go into SPAM so make sure to follow up your email with a phone call!
It's also useful to get in touch with a school via social media. Sending a tweet or a Facebook message might actually work better than an email!
Sort out your paperwork.
Make sure you pay for a DBS check. Schools won't let you visit without one.
You can either:
- charge the schools for a visit
- as school budgets have been cut you can do the author visit for FREE as long as the school commit to promoting her book and selling a certain amount to parents!
What to expect when you visit a school with your book.
A 'pre-order' newsletter system allows you to visit the school for FREE (so the schools love it!) and you can make your money by selling your books.
Typically your book will fit best with KS1 (primary) or KS2 (junior) classes and you will be invited to speak in assembly or in the children's classrooms.
Your visit can be shaped around your book! Whether you want to do a presentation using the classroom screens or hold a mini writing workshop with the kids - you can tailor your visit to the school and your ideas. The children LOVE the chance to meet a real author and get you to sign their book!
Your visit is a wonderful chance to promote your book (and get kids reading!) and the average book sales from a visit is 60%. For example, if a KS1 or KS2 visit has 210 pupils, this equates to selling 126 books!
It is up to you how many visits a month you arrange! If you arrange only ONE day a week for a month (one school in the morning, and another school in the afternoon), you have the potential to sell over 1,000 books!
If you need some help with pop-up banners or creating some 'pre-sell' book order templates just let us know, we can arrange these for you too! Just take a look at our Bookie Bolt-Ons at the bottom of our Pricing page
What the heck to expect?!
It really is a case of going well and truly out of your comfort zone - and the motto of: practise makes perfect...
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Watch Fi's video to get an idea and a few author visits tips.