Erin Shea is Head of Adult Programming at Darien Library in Darien, CT. She tweets from @erintheshea and manages Darien Library’s tumblr, where she recently wrote about hosting author events in libraries and how to find audiences for them:
“Do not neglect niche groups! For example we recently hosted Becky Aikman, author of the memoir Saturday Night Widows. I reached out to local widow support groups. We had the CEO of Weight Watchers talk about his weight loss book and I reached out to local Weight Watchers centers. Sometimes I go undercover on MeetUp.com and join MeetUp groups and invite members. I have reached out to local magicians when we had a magician author visit. Get out into your community! Also invite a local blogger to be “in conversation” with an author. That way the blog’s readership finds out about the event and the blogger promotes the heck out of your program. Get your staff excited and interested so they promote it to patrons. How do you get them excited? Involve them in the planning of your event.”
We talked to Erin over email this week and learned more about the ins and outs of author events in libraries: how they are planned, what makes them successful, and why libraries and author events make a perfect match.
Tricks of the trade y’all.
