How to Host an Online Author Event

Coronavirus has taught authors we don't have to get on planes to host successful author events. We can do cool author events from the comfort of our own home. And in many cases, they're even more well attended than live events. Whether you're sheltering in place for safety reasons or you just want a cool way to reach a much wider market area of people, this video on how to host a cool online author event is for you. Hey there, I'm Julie the Book Broad from Book Launchers. We're your professional self publisher publishing team helping you write, publish and promote a nonfiction book that will help you have a huge impact on your readers. And done right will help you grow your brand, build your business, and make you money. The best part? You get to keep all rights and royalties whether folks are still hanging out at home or not. One of the things we've learned from COVID 19 is that there's a market for content streaming right into people's homes where their children are running around them while they're working. And people's buying patterns of purchasing online and even attending things online versus going to them live is going to stick around to a degree for quite some time. Virtual events also give you the ability to collect and analyze your data and your results so you can get better and better at them. But when you're live streaming on Zoom or Facebook or YouTube, you get data right from those platforms and you can see the number of people watching you live, the average time they watched you, how many watched you concurrently, and how many comments were posted. So whether you're replacing your event with a virtual one, or you're adding it to supplement your live one, or doing a combo event, here are some things to consider when setting up your virtual book event to create success. Number one to create a successful event, you can't just turn on Facebook and go live. Sure, you can do that on a regular basis to create connection and audio. Jackson Shh. Sure, you can do that on a regular basis to create connection and audience growth and and I recommend you do that. But that's not an event that people are going to get excited about and attend. If you want to create successful events, you have to invest some time, energy, and maybe even just a little bit of money into making it a great experience for your audience. Number two is to consider what is your event goal? Are you trying to just get as many attendees as possible? Do you want book sales? Are you hoping people will opt into an email list so you can build your author platform? Do you have a specific topic or thing you want to do or offer a specific kind of value to your audience. For example, during COVID 19 all the sheltering in place, we've done a ton of deep dive training sessions for our audience. The goal of these sessions has been to support the author community and build deeper relationships with people. It's not about selling or pitching anything. Think about what your event is going to be about and what the purpose is. Of course, if your goal is to sell books, which would make sense given that it's an author event, you're going to want to figure out how you're going to do that, but we'll talk about that in a second. When I held a live book event for one of my book launches, I did an event called Burpees for Books. Every time somebody bought a book, an email in their receipt. During the live stream event, I did 10 burpees on the live stream that created engagement and gave people a reason to buy their book at that moment and email in their receipt. And then we got to have a celebration and they also caused me to do burpees which was fun for them. Third thing to think about is what type of event are you going to host? A large multi platform stream session seeking the widest possible audience using a streaming service like Streamyard or Belive or one of the others out there. Or are you going to do a single platform on YouTube or Facebook or Instagram? Or you can have an intimate gathering, maybe a private exclusive event that is only for an invite only type audience, maybe via a private Facebook group or an unlisted YouTube link or a zoom meeting link. Think about that before you do this. Here's a hint. Use something you're already familiar with. Unless you're going to have someone acting as your tech person who knows this stuff because you want to be able to be relaxed enough to enjoy the experience and add value for your audience. Tech problems can make it very hard to stay present in the moment and deliver value. Just like having 3 year olds run around your video shoot. Running around my video shoot. Also, how will you use this event to grow your email list, which is what I highly recommend you do? You can create that Facebook event page and promote it, but what else can you do to get people to opt into your newsletter? Fourth consideration, will you have a guest host? This is something I highly recommend because this person can manage comments, handle tech issues, hold the spot if you get kicked out for some reason and even take over for you. You know, if nature calls or you just need a breather. Fifth consideration, how Are you going to sell books? Like I mentioned with my Burpees for Book event, you should have some sort of a reward for buying during the event and this also makes it fun too. When someone buys a book, somebody sings a 10 second song. You wouldn't want that to be me. And you'll see the surprise and the fe. My point is I encourage you to make it super fun to buy your book during your event and you'll need someone watching the emails to see the receipts roll in so you can do a dance, do burpees, sing or celebrate. I recommend directing folks to your website to buy your book and having a bunch of retailer choices set up there or setting up a universal book link so people can buy your book through their selected retailer or you can partner with a local bookshop. If they will ship books and then everyone who participates can get signed copies that day. They just have to buy online through that store and then you can go into the store and sign those books so they can ship them off to your buyers. There are so many ways to do this. Ultimately figure out what you want people to do. Make it fun and cool to buy your book during this event. 6 Finally, because we're all about no boringbooks at Book Launchers, we're absol totally positively about no boring book events. So have some surprises and cool things planned. Plan for your event next week we're going to introduce you to Imani Roberts who did his book launch virtually when COVID 19 messed with his book launch plans. He did some really creative things to make his event a ton of fun, including surprise performances from people. So make sure you've subscribed to the channel and turn those notifications on so you catch that amazing video on Imani Roberts. Ideas other than having a surprise performance include having props, surprising people with a funny song and a dance, wearing a cool costume, having special guests, prizes and just all kinds of fun and celebrations. This is not the time to be nervous. This is the time to shine and be the host with the most to create a great experience. It is not about you looking good, it is about your attendees having fun. 7. Test it all out in advance. Your mic, your lighting, your Internet connection with the exact system you're going to run dry. Run it with your guest host. Something's going to go wrong so if you're prepared then you won't have a bunch of things going wrong. And you'll also be more relaxed because you've already decided how how problems will be troubleshooted before they even happen. And if you're like me and technology likes to gang up on you. Keep the live stream simple and just focus on creating the experience for your audience. I don't think virtual will ever replace the live experience because there is tremendous value in the personal touch that comes with meeting someone eye to eye. People are also more distracted if your event gets boring and they're going to disappear or put your event on in the background until they hear something of interest. So virtual events have disadvantages, but they also have a lot of advantages. You can reach so many more people with your event. You don't have to cancel because of weather or sickness or a pandemic. And they're very cost effective. You're not spending money on a venue or printing materials for the attendees. You can put that money towards marketing and prizes if you want. And then when you go live, that live is going to live forever on the platforms that you've done it on and it will reach people well beyond your event. So that's kind of cool. Have you done a virtual book event? What tips do you have? Let's share it in the comments below. And when you comment the day a video is released, you'll be entered to win some fabulous book launcher swag like this oh so soft journal and my mug which ran off with my three year old. Okay, thank you. And when you comment the day a video is released, you'll be entered to win some sweet noboringbooksswag and you'll be one step closer to being one of my YouTube besties like Kevin McGuire, Coach Deb, Mike Herd, Derek Silksky and Andy W. Thank you so much for your likes, shares and comments. You guys make my day. I've really enjoyed our time together today and I think we can have even more fun. What do you say? Have you seen this video right here on all the ways to make money from your book? You might really like that one. If not, YouTube thinks you're really going to like this video right here. So go ahead. Both are really fabulous if I say so myself. So just go ahead and click on over. I'm waiting.